MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 35): Ads in EBooks? Twitter Links

Ads in eBooks? Not so fast (Techcrunch):

It’s a compelling argument, but like so many compelling arguments made about the future of books, it’s also hampered by consisting almost entirely of bullshit. For one thing, publishers are really not geared up to sell ads: they’d have to recruit armies of ad sales people who would be forced to actually sit down and read the novels and historical memoirs and chick-lit-churn-outs that they’d be selling against. Not going to happen.

And even if publishers do hire these crack ad teams, they’d be asking them to perform an almost impossible task: to accurately predict the readership of forthcoming books. Magazines and newspapers are able to tell advertisers weeks or months in advance what their circulation is likely to be, and so how much bang brands can expect to get for their buck. By contrast, even publishers with decades of experience have no idea whether a given title is going to sell one copy or a million. Which advertiser would have bought ads in the niche-niche prospect ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ when the book was published in late 2003? And yet by January 2004 it had become an international bestseller. Traditional ad sales people would be constantly chasing their tails to try to keep up with such an unpredictable industry.

More importantly, though, any direct comparison between books and magazines (or newspapers) is completely misguided. Yes, both formats deliver words to readers’ eyes but where a magazine is designed for light reading – something one skims in a doctor’s waiting room, fully expecting to be interrupted at any moment - a book is a fully immersive experience in which the readers expects to be transported completely to another world.

From the twitter (@personanondata) Open for 98 years the Hood River Public Library is forced to close. Oregon Public Broadcasting OPB Travesty. Amanda Knox senses the pen is mightier than the penal code Guardian How Entertainment Weekly Embraces the Digital Age RWW. Lessons/suggestions for book publishers. A Look at the Reading Habits of E-Reader Owners - WSJ

Repost: The New Publishing Experience: Build Your Own Book

Originally posted July 10, 2007.

Traveling to a new location for vacation (and sometimes business) can be an exciting event and generally a lot of planning goes into the effort so you make the best use of your time. Often building your ideal itinerary may necessitate the purchase of several travel guides (or in my case diligent note taking in the cafe at BN) and I can only imagine that this situation is even more relevant if you travel as a family. Having had a great time - and probably seeing only half of what you thought you would - you leave the travel guides behind in the hotel room because they don't fit in the bags.

What if you were able to build a specific guide before you left that you could either print out before or carry with you as an electronic e-book? This is an idea that Penguin publishing unit DK are experimenting with which allows users to select content from their travel guides and build their own guide. I found the site a little clunky but the idea is sound and as a electronic platform DK could be in a position to offer far more content than appears in their DK travel books. If Penguin has other travel related content this could also be integrated with the DK travel content to create a distinct product that perhaps has more breadth than a user could get other than buying multiple books.

Travel (book) related websites are (or have the potential to) generating decent advertising revenues. Since a travel guide is a glorified directory it will not be long until the web is the primary mode of distribution for this content as has been the case with traditional data driven directories (i.e. booksinprint). As e-products, the integration with content from other publishers, map applications, photos, video and Podcasting is not far away. For example, I want to visit Boston and I build a travel book that includes a history and background information on Boston, a walking tour of North Boston, a satellite map, restaurant recommendations in an around the walk and after lunch I want to go to the Museum of Fine Arts where I buy admission tickets, add the highlights of the collection tour and download the MP3 audio tour. Ultimately, I want this 'packaged' so that I can either print it out and/or retain as an e-book or e-collection for future use.

But wait a minute, does the interaction end there? Conceivably, I will be taking pictures and forging my own impressions about the visit. And perhaps I want to include experiential things, like what I had for lunch and whether I liked it. So the publishing platform I use to create my travel book of Boston should be something I can edit outside the confines of the publisher supplied content. As such the DK application is not so functional but there are options elsewhere that are starting to appear - and in the future there maybe nothing to stop DK from adding this functionality.

One such application has been developed by SharedBook a software company in lower Manhattan. Sharedbook works with content owners who want to extend their relationship with their customers and enable them to self-select content and build their own book and in the process adding their own content. SharedBook works with customers who may not seem like publishers such as Regent Cruises and legacy.com but the functionality is similar to what I describe above. Clients of Regent cruises are able to select some core content to create their book while also adding their own specific content. So they can add pictures, annotations or full length essays on their cruise experience. There are a surprising number of clients who take advantage of this program since it serves as a high quality memento of their journey.

Sharedbook has a relatively easy to implement solution and their model has enabled 'non-publishers' to treat as 'content' assets that otherwise would remain one-dimensional as marketing or promotional material. In the case of traditional publishers, the Sharedbook platform can allow publishers to engage their customers directly and perhaps with a stronger link because the publishers content goes along with the customers positive experience. Obviously, customers pay for the privilege of creating their unique books but the prices are both reasonable and set by the content owner.

Back to my Boston example and using a SharedBook I could have a coffee table book produced with all the elements I selected before I left, those I added during my trip and the those I added after I return home. Once home I could scan the MFA ticket stub, the restaurant menu and add photos with annotations. Then I have my own memento of my trip. Models such as those I have described above will become more prevalent as publishers see the value in opening up their content repositories and allowing consumers to interact with their content. It is a trend worth following.


UPDATE: I wrote the above yesterday on the train back from Washington. Kassia Krozser of Medialoper and Booksquare was also writing about SharedBook at the same time. Here is her take.

Ford Prefect Warwickshire 1963

Ford Prefect, Warwickshire 1963

A weekly image from my archive. Click on the image to make it larger.

I really like this photo. This is a Ford Prefect 107E and the first car my parents bought after they got married. They tell me they were traveling back from Leamington, where I was born, to Manchester to see the parents. I must be in the back seat. You can just about see my Mother on the other side of the open door. My father is still convinced that Ford's never start first time in the cold and it must come from this time because he tells me he used to put a heater under the bonnet to warm the engine up before he tried to start it. Why he came up with this is anyone's guess but the funny thing is one day he left the heater on too long and it burned a perfectly round segment of paint off the top side of the bonnet. He said it looked like some type of decal or logo had been removed from the hood. I suspect he stopped doing that but it didn't stop him complaining that Ford's don't start in the cold.

SpringerLink adds Semantic Search: Cross search eBooks, Journals and Reference.

Announced by Springer from their press release:

Upgraded Springer site connects eBooks and journals through semantic linking and provides digital content previews

Springer has relaunched its online platform SpringerLink ( www.SpringerLink.com ), which hosts nearly five million documents, including eBooks, journals and reference works. The redesigned site has a new and fresh concept that includes semantic linking and connects related content across eBooks and journals.

SpringerLink now also contains a PDF Preview feature that provides all readers with a free look inside eBook chapters to be certain that the content matches their information needs. Subscribers not only have access to an instant overview of the entire eBook, they can also scroll and browse within different chapters of the book and can immediately download the desired content.

The redesigned site includes newly-integrated software that presents links to related content within journal articles and eBook chapters. When users perform a search, the technology analyzes each search result and compares its digital fingerprint to all other documents. This determines which documents are most similar to that article or chapter, ensuring that readers discover content that best meets their research needs.

Additional updates to the new SpringerLink include access to nearly five million contributions organized in a revised subject hierarchy. Enhanced browsing features and improved search functionality with the ability to search by citation makes the new SpringerLink even more useful for researchers. Online journals, eBooks and eReference works have also been integrated onto a single, consistent user experience. Together with an enhanced user-friendly guided navigation, students and scientists can easily retrieve results for their work.

“Following an extensive usability study, we identified navigation, design, and the provision of appropriate context as our users’ most important needs, and this, of course, guided the development of the new SpringerLink platform,” said Brian Bishop, Vice President Platform Development at Springer. “Delivering content online provides so many opportunities to add value, and this latest release moves us forward from simple search and delivery to discovery and enhanced reading experience.”

Today SpringerLink (www.SpringerLink.com) provides electronic access to more than 2,250 scientific and specialist journals, nearly 40,000 eBooks, more than 1,100 book series and about 170 reference works. The publications cover topics from 12 subject collections such as mathematics, computer science, medicine, engineering, economics, law, humanities and social sciences. It also makes available 20,000 searchable online protocols in life sciences and biomedicine.

Frankfurt Seminar: Marketing your books in the digital marketplace

Livres Canada Books is hosting a seminar on Tuesday Oct 5th and here is their description of the event:

Find out what publishers in Canada and other markets are doing to sell and promote books in an increasingly digital marketplace. Join Livres Canada Books on the afternoon of Tuesday October 5, 2010 at the Frankfurt Book Fair for an International Digital Rights Symposium. The symposium allows Canadian and international publishers to work together to develop partnerships, encourage rights sales and build strategic alliances. Publishers from several countires can learn from each other, explore similarities and discuss differences in market condiditons.

Livres Canada Books will host panelists from around the world, including John Oakes of Or Books (USA), Eoin Purcell of Green Lamp Media (Ireland) and Ronald Schild of libreka! (Germany). Register now and don’t miss these speakers and more from experts in digital publishing at our International Digital Rights Symposium. The symposium will take place from 1:00pm until 5:00pm, at which time a cocktail reception will be held for approximately 1 hour. The reception will provide an opportunity for attendees to network with colleagues and competitors from around the globe, and to collaborate on digital book sales and rights management.

Register now to ensure your spot at this highly anticipated event.

Note: Tickets are an eligible expense under the Canada Book Fund export supplement.
In addition, participating publishers who are eligible for a 2010-2011 FRMAP contribution
are entitled to one extra day of per diem.

Understanding Net Neutrality

From CCC's on going series beyond the book:

Wondering whether you should care about “net neutrality” or are you even just a little bit puzzled about exactly what is “net neutrality”?

Chris Kenneally went to Marc Strohlein, Chief Agility Officer for publishing analyst firm Outsell, for a straight take on what may be the sleeper issue of the year for publishing and media companies.

Link to the podcast.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 34): Jack London, Philosophy Books & Selling. (And Twitter Highlights)

Jack London covered by The Independent:

But perhaps the greatest act of historical castration is of Jack London. This man was the most-read revolutionary socialist in American history, agitating for violent overthrow of the government and the assassination of political leaders – and he is remembered now for writing a cute story about a dog. It's as if the Black Panthers were remembered, a century from now, for adding a pink tint to their Afros. If Jack London is chased forever from our historical memory by the dog he invented, then we will lose one of the most intriguing, bizarre figures in American history, at once inspiring and repulsive. In his 40 years of life, he was a "bastard" child of a slum-dwelling suicidal spiritualist, a child labourer, a pirate, a tramp, a revolutionary socialist, a racist pining for genocide, a gold-digger, a war correspondent, a millionaire, a suicidal depressive, and for a time the most popular writer in America. In Wolf: the Lives of Jack London, his latest biographer, James L Haley, calls London "the most misunderstood figure in the American literary canon"– but that might be because he is ultimately impossible to understand. ... Even as The Call of the Wild became one of the best-selling books in American history, newspaper editorials were calling for London to be jailed or deported for his socialist speeches. By the age of 40, he was broken. He was taking morphine to stop the pain from his booze-burned kidneys and liver. As he lay killing himself with whiskey, London grew increasingly despondent that the United States was failing to become the socialist republic he prophesised. "I grow, sometimes, almost to hate the mass, to sneer at dreams of reform," he wrote to a friend. He resigned from the Socialist Party, saying it had become too moderate and reformist and should be pushing for direct action – but he took none himself. Cut off from his great redeeming cause, he was dead within a year. His manservant found his almost-dead body, accompanied by a note calculating how much morphine it would take to kill him. Flora Chaney's bullet had hit, 40 years behind schedule.

Issh... The Independent on the rage in philosophy as subject matter:

What is gaining traction in the books market, however, is the opposite of the academic. It is the philosophy of the everyday. Warburton writes a column on the subject for Prospect magazine. In Practical Tortoise Raising, one essay begins with the quandary of how to choose which beans to buy in a supermarket. And it is applied philosophy that is the driving force behind the Philosophy for Everyone series. The volume on cycling, for example, features an essay on the implications of performance-enhancing drugs and a phenomenological appreciation of a bicycle ride by a philosopher who is also a keen amateur mountain cyclist. Another contributor, who almost qualified for the Olympics cycling team when younger, writes about the virtue of performance, of pushing one's body to the limit, and what an "honest" victory or defeat means. (Einstein claimed that the theory of relativity occurred to him while he was on two wheels: one begins to suspect that the existence of so many cycling thinkers may be no accident.) Such is its range that Cycling (Wiley-Blackwell, £11.99) is a book which could live as easily on the sport shelves as the philosophy or cultural studies shelves. How one markets philosophy is key to attracting readers. Avital believes that there are two strategies for getting it into the popular market. One he calls the "straight-ball" approach, which has been taken with Gary Cox, the author of How to Be an Existentialist. The subject of his new book, How to Be a Philosopher, is obvious from its title. Inside, he reads like a jovial college professor trying to enthuse first-year students, with reflections on Red Dwarf nudging up against David Hume. That is a direct sell. "We want someone to buy that because they want to be the smartest person in the room," says Avital. "There is a vanity aspect to the purchase. You want to be seen reading a philosophy book on the Tube."

From the twitter this week (@personanondata) Vintage TV signs Getty Images deal Guardian New Arts of Book Building: Challenges for Authors, Editors and Producers Book Business From my friend Gene Schwartz CengageBrain.com Enhances Website, Introduces Innovative Applications (Press Release) Expanding b2consumer models - interesting. (RRW) etextbooks - Never Mind iPad and eReaders, PCs Still Dominant - NYT Tech Weekly podcast: In the BBC archive Guardian A look at how the BBC is digitizing their archive. OCLC Adds New Info Features to the WorldCat.org Homepage; Test Out Genre Finder from OCLC Research OCLC New Study: $3 Billion in Sub Revenue From Interactive Periodicals by 2014 (Report)

Repost: Roger and Me

Originally posted April 30th, 2008. Speaks for itself.


I have no direct connection with Roger Clemens but I did admire him. In the mid-1980's I lived in Boston and it coincided with the time when he came up to the big leagues. When I finished my shift at the Museum of Fine Arts (the work was brutal), I generally walked home around the Public Gardens (making sure to stay out of them so as not to get mugged - that came later). During those summer evenings in 1984, through the heavy moist air, I could hear the crowd at Fenway moan and roar over the roof tops of Backbay Boston as I walked several blocks away. You could tell the night Roger was pitching; it was just electric and I don't consider myself a baseball fan but in Boston there was huge civic pride over the Red Socks and this pitching marvel.

Well things change. Ultimately they were happy to see him go and now his biography is basically writing itself in chapters delivered to the newspapers every few weeks. Some publisher is going to get the deal but not, I hope, without a set of conditions that has him coming clean about every thing. But that is unlikely to happen until he gets indicted and (perhaps) sentenced for perjuring himself. Unless they find proof (which admittedly wouldn't surprise anyone) they may not have a case just the stink of suspicion. Ultimately if he is backed into a corner where he can't escape, he will just do the public apology thing, cash in and we will all go on with our lives as though all is forgotten.

There has been a published bio: Rocket Man: The Roger Clemens Story and this was the booklist review of the book:

Roger Clemens' 24-4 pitching record for the 1986 American League champion Boston Red Sox earned him a rare double honor: Most Valuable Player (usually the exclusive domain of position players) and the Cy Young Award (best pitcher). He also set a new major-league record with 20 strikeouts in a game. And he's only 24 which is good news for Red Sox fans but not so good for readers of this autobiography, since the baby-faced fastballer has hardly experienced enough to merit an extended article, let alone an entire book. Coauthor and premier baseball writer Peter Gammons keeps things moving crisply enough, but ultimately this is mediocre sports-bio fare. There is likely to be demand based on Clemens' name, particularly since he has settled his contract dispute and won't spend the year on the sidelines.

I recall that summer in 1984. Roger had an August night where he stuck out 15 and came back in his next game and stuck-out 10. Sadly, he has struck himself out but we have all long since lost and now we don't even moan and grown about this latest example of Athletic failure anymore.

Floating Wreck: HMS Queen Elizabeth 1 Hong Kong 1972

Floating Wreck: Queen Elizabeth 1, Hong Kong Harbor 1972

A weekly image from my archive. Click on the image to make it larger.

This image gets a lot of traffic and is also located here on flickr with a second image taken a few seconds later as we took off from Kai Tak.


Another old liner photo but this time a more ignominious end to the star of the Cunard line RMS Queen Elizabeth rather than the one I posted of the USS United States. The Queen Elizabeth had been sold by Cunard and was being refit in Hong Kong as a floating university. The work was almost completed when a fire broke out and the ship was completely destroyed. The ship then lay on its side in the harbor as seen here for months while the owners haggled with the insurance company over what to do with it. This image was taken six months after the fire (and I wasn't on this trip) but I recall seeing the wreck several months later (October) when I visited Hong Kong on my way back to New Zealand.

Join me on Flickr

In addition to the images I've posted on Flickr and those I've periodically posted on PND, I have now produced a Big Blurb Book: From the Archive 1960 -1980 of some of the images I really thought were special.

I now have an iPad version of this book for sale ($4.99) on the Blurb site which you can find here: STORE

I have to say, even on the iPad the book looks pretty good.

PND Technology: KnowMore

This is week three in my recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

Knowmore is still in beta but it looks promising and interesting to anyone who juggles many social networking relationships. And increasingly that is many of us.

Knowmore has created on view of all your social network relationships and presents that content in various streams that you as a user establish. (Here is the video but sadly the audio is bad but good enough that you can still understand the presenter). Knowmore doesn't care which network supplies the content rather they are focused on presenting all the content you and your social network is interacting with in a more logical and consistent way. For example, you are able to set up streams that collect all the videos and photos that your network is looking at or commenting on regardless of where they were located so you can see a concentrated and focused itemization of this content. Additionally, Knowmore has incorporated a 'social search' function so that you can look at and search everything your network has shared. As they say in their presentation at NYTech, "who better to trust than the people you know and love to tell you what you should be interested in".

It is difficult to determine whether 'aggregation' of our social networks will become a long term play; however, Knowmore is an interesting starting point and once they come out of private beta it may be fun to play around with. Longer term this functionality could be incorporated into your browser but that ignores the ingenuity of companies like Knowmore to add layers and value to their aggregation solution over time.

Series: Content Curation

Over the past two months, I've looked at content curation as a theme and I thought I would summarize my posts. As I've mentioned, the practice of curation is not a new one as any librarian, or television program director or editor could attest; however, as media outlets become ubiquitous and content becomes overwhelming the need for better curation is vastly under-estimated as a business model and a consumer need.

My posts on this issue are as follows:

The Curator and the Docent:

Recently, as I wandered around a museum with overwhelming breadth and depth of content, I was lucky to be guided in my travels by a professional. When she introduced herself to me, she used the term ‘docent’ to describe her function. A docent is a ‘knowledgeable guide’ and the function seems to me to perfectly complement the process of curation. In an online world, where more and more content appears to “carry the same weight,” we will look to and pay for the combination of curator and docent – sometimes the same person or entity – who can organize and manage a range of content and also engage with the user so they gain insight and meaning from the material. At Mywire.com, we intentionally approached branded media companies because they were recognized as experts in their segments. These are the companies which should be able to build revenue models around the curation of content to offer subscribers a materially different experience than simply performing a Google search query delivering up generic news and semi-relevant content.

Confusing a Silo with a Business

The lesson for less advanced publishers is that building a concentration around siloed content is not enough; in-fact, aggregating consumer interest and appeal around publishing content will fail unless that concentration includes content from the web, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. which is also organized, validated and served up in the most effective manner for the consumer. Information publishers have been able to evolve their model to support the needs of their professional customers but the consumer market is more anarchic and it remains to be seen whether trade publishers can pull it off. Silos may not be worth the effort.

United Artists Redux

Amidst radical change forced on them by major advances in technology (largely out of their control), a small group of leading media producers have joined together to establish their own (insert word): broadcaster, publisher, studio, agency. Unlikely? Not now, because the functions that support these traditional media companies are increasingly becoming commoditised, enabling the creative producers (writers, authors, producers, etc.) to potentially collect more of the revenues generated from their creative output. While individual authors have gained some attention by 'going direct,' either by working through Amazon (J.A. Konrath) or direct to consumers via the iPad (Ryu Mirakami), it may be that traditional publishers have more to fear from groups of authors, editors and agents conspiring to establish their own media companies. These new companies would leverage the available low-cost 'back office' functions and the readily available supply-chain provision to dis-intermediate the traditional publishing monolith.

Silos of Curation - Repost

Something similar to the platform approach may take shape in a different way with intermediaries playing the role of curator. This is an approach that companies such as Publisher’s Weekly or The New York Review of Books might have adopted if they had been more prescient. The capability to guide consumers to the best books, stories and professional content within a specific segment (without regard to publisher or commerce) may come to define publishing in the years to 2020. (See Monday’s post). Expert curation can simplify the selection process for consumers, aggregate interest around topics and build homogeneous markets for commerce. As an added benefit to these intermediaries’ customers, publishers will chose to focus intensely on each segment and offer specialized value-adds particular to that segment. As content provision expands – witness the delivery of all the books in the Google Book project – readers will become increasingly confused and looking for help. It seems inevitable that intermediaries between publisher and e-commerce will meet that need.

Curating Research Data at Elsevier

Elsevier announced a partnership with Pangaea which is a 'data library' that links primary research data with journal articles in earth and environmental science. As I mentioned last week, information and academic publishers like Elsevier have long organized themselves around content areas but are now 'widening' their content 'silos' to accommodate tools, techniques and proprietary data provided by third parties. This is a good example of how the Elsevier 'platform' can and is being leveraged beyond what may have originally been envisioned as a closed system.

Oh My Curation! It's about the Librarian

I chanced on a very interesting article in Harvard Magazine this week as I was doing research for a presentation I am making next week. Titled Gutenberg 2.0: Harvard's Libraries Deal With Disruptive Change, the article is written by the magazine's managing editor Jonathan Shaw and is one of the more thought provoking articles I have read about the impact(s) of our transition from print to online.

Several themes come out of this article: Firstly, traditional publishing is ill-equipped to manage the huge onslaught of data and information. Specific examples note the medical discipline. Secondly, training for the consumers and students who have access to databases and information is inadequate; moreover, this negatively impacts job effectiveness. Examples, here include medical and legal professions. Thirdly, librarians may retain specific skills that bridge the gap between the generic content where 'everything carries the same weight' and a 'consciously curated and controlled artifact' managed to the benefit of a librarian's constituency

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 33): Lynd Ward, Report on eBooks in Libraries, OCLC WMS, Arcade Fire

From the Seattle PI Blog:

In what just might be one of the publishing surprises and hi-spots of 2010, The Library of America will release a 2 volume boxed set featuring the six woodcut novels of Lynd Ward. God's Man, Ward's first book published on the eve of the stock market collapse of 1929, was the first wordless book-length novel to be published in the United States. By the end of 1937 Ward would publish five more novels in woodcuts: Madman's Drum (1930) Wild Pilgrimage (1932) Prelude to a Million Years (1933) Song Without Words (1936) Vertigo (1937) If one is looking for the origins of the graphic novel in the United States one must begin with Ward. His work has influenced a generation of artists, poets and illustrators and continues to inspire those seeking justice and equality for all.

Library Journal report on a study commissioned by COSLA that takes a look at eBooks in libraries. It is a very interesting report with both situational analysis and recommendations. LJ's summary is good but the entire report is worth a read (LJ):

A provocative new report released today by the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) on the upheaval caused by ebooks asks, "Is it different this time?" The answer, in "eBook Feasibility Study for Public Libraries," is a resounding yes, including a call for a national buying pool to buy ebooks--a tactic likely to face pushback from publishers and distributors. Still, the report serves as a rallying cry. "We want to create our destiny," COSLA says of the venture. "We want to be ready. We are tired of allowing others to decide these things for public libraries." The 53-page report consists of findings collected from interviews with ten library managers, covering a variety of topics and concerns--which were then discussed with other industry experts. Given the potential for e-reading to change the emphasis from libraries away from repositories of print, the report also suggests public libraries emphasize their role as community centers for learning and events. ... The paltry nature of ebook collections available to libraries in comparison to consumer offerings prompts the report's most action-oriented suggestion: A single, national purchasing point for eBooks combined with expert selection, tough negotiation, and data mining that gives members a compelling story for local funders is a different beast from consortia that mostly fill operations or content gaps for have-not libraries. It forces a reckoning and concentrates eBook access to create real leverage. But it's a steep climb from where we are. Inspiration and leadership will be key. Indeed, major concerns about redirecting local funds to such an umbrella effort have been raised. The slightly weaker--though far more prevalent--formulation offered is to increase pressure on vendors and publishers, thus pushing for thus pushing for lower prices, standardized formats, and fewer digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. But libraries face firm opposition, according to the report: "Publishers want library models that collect payment for every use"--as is the model in the UK--"lease access instead of sell objects, or have digital rights that enforce methods that worked for print, such as one copy one user."

OCLC's web-scale management system is in beta test with several libraries (AmLib):

The much-hyped OCLC Web-scale Management Services (WMS) moved from pilot phase to production last month with the release of acquisitions and circulation components to around 30 early adopters. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has posted an ambitious timeline that would make it the first institution to go live with the product on August 30; Pepperdine University Libraries in Malibu, California, is slated to come in second with a projected go-live date of October 11. Calling WMS “the future of the ILS,” UTC’s Jason Griffey, project lead for the WMS migration, told American Libraries that “using a centralized database of bibliographic records like WorldCat means that you simplify pretty much every other aspect of back-office procedures.” Web-scale Management Services moves acquisitions, circulation, and patron management into the cloud, putting those functions alongside WorldCat Local; the aim is to make workflows more efficient by automating critical back-office operations and reducing software support costs.

The New Yorker looks at how Arcade Fire represents both change and statis in the recording industry (New Yorker):

Well-known acts like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have taken widely publicized steps to conduct business outside the major-label system, sometimes in experimental ways, such as leaving tracks from upcoming albums on U.S.B. drives in bathrooms to be discovered by fans. But both bands had spent more than a decade on major labels, building their audiences with the marketing power of large corporations behind them. In the U.S., Arcade Fire has only ever worked with Merge Records, an independent label from North Carolina, which was started by the musicians Mac McCaughan and Laura Balance, in 1989. The band often records its albums in its own studios, to exacting and personal specifications, and retains ownership of the music, which it licenses to Merge. Its previous two albums have gone gold, or close to it, and “The Suburbs” is expected to do the same, or better. The new album is driven by the perfervid, jerry-rigged noise that has become Arcade Fire’s trademark, but it stretches over a deceptively calm sixty-four minutes. The lead singer, Win Butler, takes a surprising tack: the characters on this album aren’t all drowning, or caught in serial crises—they are getting on with things, and hoping to have children. Even as “The Suburbs” follows characters across lawns and through strip malls, it avoids obvious finger-wagging. Arcade Fire has previously worked in an epic mode, favoring anthems over smaller, more specific songs, but here its widely reported and entirely genuine energy is channeled, with nothing wasted—not a bonfire but a series of pilot lights. Watching an independent band sell out the Garden and top the charts while compromising very little—Arcade Fire released eight different album covers for “The Suburbs”—is inspiring, but it isn’t a complete revolution. The band still has a manager and a label who work on its behalf, commercially and artistically. Scott Rodger, Arcade Fire’s manager, described the label’s role as “manufacturing and distribution—floating the expense, executing the marketing and retail plans that we have approved, and insuring that the music is available on all credible D.S.P.s,” or digital service platforms.

From the twitter last week (@personanondata):

It's official: Trenton's four library branches are closed - Trentonian

Buenos Aires Herald What's going on in BA book retailing you ask? Their hot 20 titles.

Publishing Economics: A $625 Cookbook NPR

Borders Group lays off more employees at Ann Arbor headquarters - AnnArbor.com

"Heeere's Johnny!" Carson Entertainment Group Unveils 30-Year Carson Library Carson And Steven Wright