Books about Presidents

These USA Today snapshots were the best and most effective marketing and PR we did at Bowker when I was there. We got more mileage out of these than anything else we did. At the time it was Andrew Grabois who did the stats and this time it is Roy Crego.

MediaWeek Report (Vol 3, No 45a): Recent Publishers' Financial Headlines- Peason, Hachette, Simon & Schuster

The past few weeks have seen a resurgence of sorts in the fortunes of some of publishing's biggest players. Here is a summary: Pearson noted that their markets were 'subdued' however they continued to produce market gains their competitors probably envy (Press Release):

Demand in some of our markets remained subdued in the third quarter, and the macroeconomic outlook is still uncertain. Even so, Pearson increased sales by 7% and adjusted operating profit 15% in the first nine months of 2010*. All parts of the company continued to perform strongly, with sales growth of 5% in Penguin, 7% in education and 11% at the Financial Times Group. ...

In North America, this strategy enabled us to gain share and grow faster than our market, with sales growth of 5% in the first nine months. Our Higher Education business grew strongly once again. Its market remains healthy (industry sales up 10% in the first eight months, according to the Association of American Publishers) and our leadership in digital learning continues to produce market share gains. More than 3.5m students have enrolled in an online course provided by eCollege in the first nine months, an increase of almost 39% over last year. More than 6.5m college students have registered for our subject-specific digital learning tools (MyLabs), an increase of almost 34%. Our Assessment and Information business remained resilient as we won or renewed a number of contracts including a teacher certification contract in Pennsylvania and student data systems in Utah. The breadth of our School Curriculum business and its strength in digital is enabling us to grow despite weakness in state and local funding and uncertainty around the impact of new Common Core standards. We are planning on the basis that school funding remains under pressure in 2011 and that the total new adoption opportunity will be lower than in 2010. We are accelerating the transformation of our School business, investing to broaden the range of products and services we offer to schools to help them boost student performance and institutional efficiency. Sales in International Education are up 8% after nine months. We are benefiting from strong demand in developing markets and for assessment services, English Language learning in China and digital, while developed markets and school publishing are generally soft. In the first nine months, MyLab registrations outside North America were up almost 40% on the same period last year to more than 460,000. ....

At Penguin, sales are up 5%. Physical retail markets are tough, but are offset for Penguin by strong publishing and rapid growth in eBook sales (which have increased threefold). Penguin continues to lead the industry in innovation in digital publishing, with 16,500 eBook titles now available and a number of children’s apps for bestselling brands. The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry became a bestseller in five formats (hardback, ebook, enhanced ebook, app and audio), a publishing first. The fourth quarter is an important selling season in consumer publishing and Penguin has a strong line-up of bestselling authors including Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Barbra Streisand and Nora Roberts in the US; and Michael McIntyre and Jamie Oliver in the UK.

Hachette (Grand Central Books) reported declines attributed to reduced sales of the Stephanie Meyer 'saga' (Press Release):

As expected, the erosion in sales of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) had a marked impact on revenue trends not only in the United States, but also in France and the United Kingdom. In France, the postponement of deliveries of secondary school textbooks from the third quarter to the fourth quarter (due to the late announcement of new curriculums) also had a temporarily negative effect. And in Spain, the Education market was more challenging than last year.

After a like-for-like revenue fall of just 4.5% in the first half of 2010, there was a more marked fall (of 6.8%) in the nine months to end September; this was largely due to the sharp decline in the Stephenie Meyer phenomenon and the non-recurrence of the sale of the international rights to the saga, booked in the first half of 2010.

However, revenues for the first nine months of 2010 are slightly ahead of those for the comparable period of 2008, demonstrating the remarkable resilience of the Lagardère group. Numerous literary successes - James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks in the United States, David Nicholls and Sarah Waters in the United Kingdom, and Jacques Attali and Erik Orsenna in France - are testimony to the dynamism of our publishing houses.

Sales of e-books remain strong, accounting for some 9% of revenues in the United States in the first nine months of 2010.

Simon & Schuster (Part of CBS)

For the three months ended September 30, 2010, Publishing revenues decreased 6% to $217.7 million from $230.4 million for the same prior-year period reflecting lower book sales in the adult group from the soft retail market, partially offset by growth in sales of digital content. Best-selling titles in the third quarter of 2010 included The Power by Rhonda Byrne and Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward. For the three months ended September 30, 2010, Publishing operating income increased 11% to $29.4 million from $26.6 million and OIBDA increased 10% to $31.1 million from $28.4 million for the same prior-year period reflecting the impact of cost containment measures, lower royalty expenses and lower production costs from a change in the mix of titles. Nine Months Ended September 30, 2010 and 2009: For the nine months ended September 30, 2010, Publishing revenues decreased 3% to $559.1 million from $573.5 million for the same prior-year period reflecting the soft retail market, partially offset by growth in digital sales of Publishing content. For the nine months ended September 30, 2010, Publishing operating income increased 47% to $44.9 million from $30.6 million and OIBDA increased 36% to $49.9 million from $36.6 million for the same prior-year period reflecting the impact of cost reduction measures and lower production expenses from a change in the mix of titles, partially offset by higher royalty expenses. Restructuring charges of $1.8 million incurred during the nine months ended September 30, 2010 reflect severance costs associated with the elimination of positions.

NewsCorp is done separating out the Harpercollins unit from their other publishing assets. (SeekingAlpha)

McGraw-Hill Education and Professional publishing reported as follows (Press Release):

Education: Revenue for this segment increased by 5.5% to $1.1 billion in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. Including a $3.8 million pre-tax gain on the divestiture of a secondary school business in Australia, the operating profit for the third quarter grew by 19.9% to $357.5 million. Cost controls contributed to the increase in the segment's operating margin to 33.9%, the best third-quarter performance for McGraw-Hill Education since 2007. Foreign exchange rates had an immaterial impact on revenue and operating profit in the third quarter. Revenue for the McGraw-Hill School Education Group increased by 6.7% to $534.7 million in the third quarter versus the same period last year. Revenue for the McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Professional and International Group grew by 4.3% to $520.0 million in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year. A strong performance in the state new adoption market was the major factor in McGraw-Hill School Education Group's third quarter results. The McGraw-Hill School Education Group is on track to capture approximately 30% of the estimated $825 million to $875 million state new adoption market in 2010. In 2009, the state new adoption market was about $500 million. ... In professional publishing, online sales of books and digital products produced solid growth in the third quarter. Double-digit e-book sales were a bright spot in the sluggish retail book market, which continues to be buffeted by difficult economic conditions. More than 5,000 McGraw-Hill professional titles are now available to customers as e-books.

Harlequin a division of TorStar is often beset by forex changes (PR)

Book Publishing operating profit was $23.0 million in the third quarter of 2010, up $0.1 million from $22.9 million in the third quarter of 2009, as $1.4 million of underlying growth offset a negative $1.3 million from the impact of foreign exchange. Year to date, Book Publishing operating profit was $66.1 million, up $3.0 million from $63.1 million last year as $6.2 million of underlying growth more than offset a negative $3.2 million from the impact of foreign exchange. In both the quarter and the year to date, operating results were up in the North America Direct-To-Consumer and Overseas divisions and down in the North America Retail division.

Earlier this month Wolters Kluwer reiterated their full year guidance (PR)

In the third quarter, growth in online and software solutions continued in all divisions. With improving retention rates across the business, subscription revenues, which represent 72% of total revenues, showed improvement over the prior year, especially for electronic revenues. This growth helped to offset the impact of print publishing declines and the continued pressure on advertising and pharma promotional product lines. Book performance improved in the third quarter driven by strong results in legal education and health book product lines. The Health & Pharma Solutions division performed well, with strong growth noted at Clinical Solutions, Ovid, and books. Within Tax & Accounting, new sales and retention rates for software solutions grew at a solid rate which helped offset pressure on print-based publishing. Financial & Compliance Services saw double-digit growth in its audit risk and compliance product lines and cyclical revenues associated with mortgage lending improved in the third quarter. In the Legal & Regulatory division, transactional revenues at Corporate Legal Services continued to grow, reflecting the steady economic recovery underway in the U.S. While online and software products grew globally within Legal & Regulatory, macro economic conditions continue to put pressure on publishing and cyclical product lines such as training, consulting and advertising, particularly within Europe, offsetting the positive trends for electronic revenues.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 45): Attention and Information, British Museum Manuscripts, Irish Shorts, Audio Books, Renting Textbooks, Cooks Source

I don't normally quote blogs on these weekly round-ups (for no real reason) but I came across this post by The Aporetic questioning whether we are really suffering from over abundance of information versus what our ancestors faced:

Rus­tic sim­plic­ity, except that the farmer in charge has labor man­age­ment problems–who are these work­ers, how is he com­pen­sat­ing them? He has to man­age the horses–how is their health? Do they need feed­ing and water­ing? He’s got to get the har­vested wheat stored prop­erly: he’s check­ing the weather all the time–just imag­ine how much infor­ma­tion is involved, in an age before reli­able fore­casts, in guess­ing the weather! He’s scan­ning the crop itself, to see how much he lost to insects or dis­ease. He’s got a good idea of crop prices in Chicago and whether they’re trend­ing up or down. The scene was information-dense, and if you click on the image, you can see how the orig­i­nal title frames the scene. The mod­ern farmer climbs into the air con­di­tioned cab of a com­bine har­vester, and turns on the radio. The radio fills the atten­tion spaces left by, say, read­ing the weather signs or man­ag­ing the work­ers or the animals. ... But the argu­ment about atten­tion here is that atten­tion is a constant–it just directs itself, when freed, to whatever’s avail­able. The arrival of online archives gives us “sur­plus atten­tion.” What do we do with our­selves now that the time required for basic research has been (in many cases) so dras­ti­cally reduced?

I visited the Ritblat Gallery at the British Library in October which contains a wide variety of original manuscripts and other material on permanent display. It is well worth the trip and in this article Andrew Motion, chairman of the Booker Committee takes us on a tour (IL):

The gallery is easy to take for granted. Compared with the visual arts, the thrill and beauty of manuscripts are not widely celebrated, but this single mid-sized room, with its black walls, lowered lights and atmosphere of something approaching reverence, is one of the world’s great treasure-troves. It is a place of delight as well as learning, and of astonishment as well as understanding. Whenever I have a group of students, I insist that they come here: it’s an Eng Lit version of the geography field trip. Some parts of the collection are on permanent display—the material relating to Lewis Carroll and the “Alice” books, and the manuscripts of several songs by the Beatles. These songs are as good a place to start as any, as they abolish any idea that displays of this sort are somehow dusty, or of narrow academic interest. The Beatles’ music and words continue to live in the world as few other kinds of writing have ever managed to do. Yet their composition, judging by the evidence here, depended on a similar blend of luck and labour. Paul McCartney’s “Michelle” turns out to be based on a tune he first tried to get down when he was at school, “in an attempt”, the label says, “to write a French-sounding song at the time when the bohemian Parisian Left Bank was a fashionable influence on art students”. Several years later John Lennon suggested that if Paul wanted it to sound French, he’d better use some French words—hence “ma belle” and so on. It was hardly Proust, but it did the trick, and the song was included on “Rubber Soul”. It became the only Beatles track to be named Song of the Year at the Grammys.

Anne Enright in The Guardian looks at the Irish short story and tries to fathom why they are so good at it (Guardian):

Perhaps Irish writers, like Irish actors, rely more than is usual on personality in that balance of technique and the self that is the secret of style. The trick might be in its suppression, indeed, an effort that must fail, over time. John Banville, Edna O'Brien, McGahern, Tóibín – these writers become more distinctive as people, even as their sentences become more distinctively their own. It is a jealous kind of delight to find on the page some inimicable thing, a particular passion, and if the writer is dead, it is delightful and sad to meet a sensibility that will not pass this way again. The shock of recognition runs through this anthology. As much as possible I have tried to choose those stories in which a writer is most himself. A writer has many selves, of course, and an editor has many and mixed criteria – some of them urgent, as I have described, and some more easy. The selection is from writers who were born in the 20th century (cheating a little for Elizabeth Bowen, who was born in 1899); I wanted to put together a book that was varied and good to read, with a strong eye to the contemporary.

Audio books are on the upswing in the UK as reported by the Independent:

According to the most recent sales figures from the Publishers Association, downloads of audio books grew by 72 per cent between 2008 and 2009. Sales of talking books on CD, cassette and DVD also grew to an annual £22.4m, according to the sales monitoring company Nielsen BookScan. It all began very differently. Exactly 75 years ago today, audio books were first produced as a public service for soldiers blinded in the First World War. The Talking Books Service, an audio library run by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, was launched in 1935, when Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was recorded on to LPs and distributed to users, along with a large record player. Modern technology – particularly MP3 players – and a growing roster of high-profile narrators, have given the format a dramatic boost.

From the WaPo: Textbook rental programs offer no relief to rising textbook prices (WaPo):

In the end, students will decide how they get their textbooks - and they have an ever-expanding galaxy of choices. They can buy them new, shrink-wrapped at campus stores. They can search online for discounted used copies at numerous websites like Amazon.com or Bigwords.com. They can download them to their computers or rent them - from their campus bookstore, from online websites and even the publishers themselves. Two of the largest bookstore operators, Barnes & Noble and Follett Higher Education Group, have spent millions to build their own Internet rental portals in the face of competition from websites, stocking up on inventory and developing tracking software. Yet for all of the innovation from digital media and the Internet, prices are still set by publishers, who market directly to faculty. Faculty, in turn, decide titles for study, often without considering cover prices. That means students are still paying hundreds of dollars each semester.

For entertainment value alone the controversy over Cooks Source lifting a blogger's article was enough to keep your attention and to get an idea cast your eye over their facebook page to see how the internets are taking to it. Far afield the Sydney Morning Herald takes a bash at explaining it (SMH):

That's what Cooks Source was relying on. The New England-based bottom feeder lifted Gaudio's piece, gave it a few tweaks, and reprinted it as new copy without attribution. Exactly the same sin of plagiarism for which Helen Darville/Demidenko was finally run out of publishing about 10 years ago. When Gaudio discovered the theft –for that's what it was, not inadvertent borrowing, or sub editing error, her work was stolen– she contacted the editor of Cooks Source, Judith Griggs, asking for a correction and an apology. As a show of good faith, just to prove she wasn't some sort of egomaniac greed head, she asked the magazine to make a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism rather than to pay her. Some of you will already be aware of what happened next. Griggs sent a frankly amazing e-mail, full of legal errors, claiming the Internet to be entirely public domain, a place where copyright did not apply, and told the freelancer she should be happy the magazine didn't lift the entire article before putting somebodyelse's name on it. In a deliciously droll passage which was either completely clueless, or shaded with cartoon villainy, the Cooks Source editor informed Gaudio that this was standard practice online and happens "clearly more than you are aware of".

From the twitter (@personanondata) this week:

British Library hints at videogame archiving plan Independent Grand Theft Cataloging..

JSTOR and Serials Solutions Partner to Enhance Discoverability of Resources Nov. 4, 2010 PRNewswire

Online Learning Is Growing on Campus - NYTimes Bricks and Mortar a thing of the past?

Times's paywall figures don't add up to a new business model Guardian

And in sports, Jenson Button is welcomed to Sao Paulo (Independent)

Repost: There are Libraries and there are Libraries

Originally posted on October 10, 2006

We get loads of magazines here at PND Central mainly because my bequeathed is an interior designer and needs them for 'research'. I always find myself looking at these pictures of living rooms and focusing on the bookshelves pictured to identify the books these people have purchased. There is actually a spread in the current (November) House and Garden (US) showing the libraries of selected rich people which is great food for my curiosity. Rather than an opportunity to discuss how these books add to the quality of life of these people or indeed what part the collection of books plays in their lives the spread is about clothes and jewelry. Fits entirely with a magazine that is supposed to represent 'design for the well lived life'.

The pictures of the libraries themselves are naturally attractive and they do represent a spectrum. One library is over 3,000 books (but only a small portion are shown) and another seems suspiciously lacking in said critical element. Perhaps in this case the appellation 'library' is simply affectation. In addition to this spread there are also a few pages with some library furniture including a gorgeous book stand and library ladder. I wish I could link to the pages.

I would love to have a designated library with enough room for our current collection and expansion space. My wife has a large collection of large format design and garden books and has run out of space such that the titles now pile under her desk. This is not a way to treat these wonderful items. We have plans to own a house where we can designate a true library - free of TV and with some of the types of furniture House and Garden might advertise.

Mrs PND and I have different philosophies on organizing the books as well. I like to group my authors and use some rudimentary dewey decimal system but she on the otherhand has no organization. She has her side and I have mine. We share a check book but not the book shelves. (Since I was a child I always retained my own collection and did not mix my books with my family either). In the next several years we both plan to become more methodical about how and what we collect while we still retaining the joy of reading.

Looking at the titles that people have in their collections - via my close views of house magazines and books - does give me some insight into who the people might be. I think the most curious pictures are those that cover vast houses of immense expense and lavish wall art but few books. Often what books these people have are one notable best seller per year for the past ten years as though this was all they could manage. Table tops are often covered with art books which look like they were placed by the photographer. A dead give-away is when the same books are in different shots. Thankfully, rarely do you see books with the dust covers removed: "tell the client to toss all the dust jackets," was the advice my wife was once given by her mentor. That just horrifies me.

Fishing off Hoboken: 1992

Fishing off Hoboken: 1992

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

Technically off limits this small pier below Stevens University was a frequent location for fishermen before the waterfront was opened up to the public. Ordinarily the better view from this perspective is directly forward where lower Manhattan spreads out down the river rather than this view looking downward. I've a lot of the former images as well but on this particular day this perspective was more interesting.

Join me on Flickr

Fake Reviews: Does Amazon have a sense of Humor?

Take a look at how numerous Amazon reviewers have taken the time to write reviews for a book that is either a test page (why Amazon would be doing that at this stage is questionable) or the metadata is someone's idea of a sick bibliographic joke. Since the record appears on other booksellers web pages it may be the latter. Anyway the reviews are funny and in case the page is removed here are images:

NetGalley Announce Hachette Digital Galley Program

One of my favorite new technology companies Net Galley has announced a new client agreement with Hachette to deliver their digital galleys. Here is the press release:

Hachette Book Group announced today that they will use NetGalley to distribute digital galleys and digital press kits (including video, audio, tour schedules, author Q&As, and photos) to reviewers, bloggers, media, booksellers, librarians, and educators.

Using NetGalley, HBG will be able to share secure, text-searchable, full-color digital galleys, which the reader can download onto a variety of devices, including Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo Reader, and the user’s desktop.

Distributing galleys and marketing material through NetGalley is a faster, more efficient, and environmentally conscious method of sharing content. HBG looks to expand its reach into the reviewer and blogger community, delivering digital galleys to their own extensive contact lists, as well as NetGalley’s network of readers who are both hungry for books and embracing the technology—and ease and speed of delivery – that this new platform offers.

NetGalley’s membership currently numbers 12,000 “professional readers.” Readers can register and use the site for free at www.netgalley.com. HBG’s launch catalog on NetGalley includes new titles from Brad Meltzer, Lawrence Block, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Darren Shan, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Don Winslow, Michael Koryta, Tom Holt and Nic Sheff.

The catalog will expand in the coming months but the current title list is here.

More on NetGalley

When is a standard not standard practice?

Forty years ago something remarkable happened in the UK publishing world. The Standard Book Number (SBN) was defined on the basis that it was better to cooperate across the supply chain than not. That booksellers, wholesalers, publishers and associated agencies all came together in agreement on something so mundane and wonky seems anachronistic, yet these UK visionaries established one of the most successful standards implementations in any industry.

The primary business driver of this effort was explained in the original paper written by Professor F.G. Foster, specifying the requirements of the SBN:

“By a Standard Number for a book title is meant a number which is made known to, and may be used by, all concerned with order processing operations involving that title. The number is then an identifying code for that title throughout its life, and it does not change. The Standard Number can be used, for example, by wholesalers or institutional suppliers in all their operations. Publishers will appreciate the advantages in arranging that their titles have Standard Numbers so that orders involving these titles can be processed more quickly and efficiently.

The general adoption of Standard Numbering by U.K. publishers will mean that instead of the trade having to cope with a proliferation of incompatibly numbered publishers' lists (with the possibility of the same number appearing on different lists to indicate different titles) there will be created a single register of all titles, and their Standard Numbers will be made readily available to all who require to use them.[1]”

So imperative did the UK industry believe to be the SBN implementation that they initially forsook international acceptance. In the UK, the bibliographic agency John Whitaker & Sons was given the task of administering the SBN and, in the early 1970s, the US agency R.R. Bowker was invited to join in an international implementation of the standard. Thus, the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was born.

In the intervening 40 years, the ISBN has served us exceptionally well. Most publishing operations from book ordering to royalty processing to best-seller lists, couldn’t function today without the ISBN. The objective of managing operations efficiently across the supply chain from agents to publishers to booksellers has been achieved and, while this success is exemplary and has been achieved with a very light hand by the international agency that manages the standard, the publishing industry is now undergoing such change that even the ISBN may be straining to adapt.

As the publishing industry migrates to an electronic content, world publishers and retailers have been asking whether ISBN can accommodate the changes in process, product and placement. In the application of ISBN numbers to eBook content the international agency has formulated a policy – applied to all ISBN countries and agencies – that requires a distinct ISBN be applied to each format of an eBook made available to the trade. This policy requires that a publisher placing a pdf, mobipocket, or ePub version of a title into the supply chain must apply separate ISBNs to each ‘product’.

In the sometimes arcane world of standards discussions can sometimes get heated and this policy has generated strong opinions on both sides of the argument. Some publishers agree in practice with the International ISBN’s requirements and some publishers do not. Those who do not are typically applying their eBook ISBN to only one file (often the ePub file).

As noted, the ISBN policy is consistent with past practice that called for the application of a separate ISBN to the hard cover, large print, library edition and so on. The specific eBook requirement dates to revision to the entire ISBN standard approximately five years ago. The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) recently commissioned a study to review current practice and opinion from supply chain partners on this eBook ISBN issue and the study is expected to be completed by the middle of November. Out of the study, BISG expects to develop a policy statement that addresses the objectives of the International ISBN community while representing the realities of the US marketplace.

This article first appeared in Foreword Magazine.

As you may know I am conducting the study for BISG and I am condensing my interviews into a findings report. I've conducted over 50 interviews with more than 70 people across the supply chain and thus should have an excellent perspective on what is current practice.

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[1] F.G. Foster: http://www.informaticsdevelopmentinstitute.net/isbn.html

Edelweiss Incorporates Goodreads "Shelf Counts" in Title Buzz Tracking

Above the Treeline is pleased to announce the addition of the Goodreads shelf count to the buzz tracking tools within Edelweiss, its market-leading online publisher catalog service. In addition to the newly added Goodreads data, Edelweiss provides Twitter and blog tracking so that book professionals using Edelweiss can easily see which titles have online activity and can quickly view the relevant information. Similar to the other buzz tracking tools in Edelweiss, the Goodreads indicator will contain a link to the title page on the Goodreads site so that users can see full Goodreads information for a selected title.

Goodreads is an online community of more than 4.1 million book lovers and casual readers who are able to assign titles to personal shelves, such as "to-read", "currently-reading", "read" and other custom shelves. By integrating this aggregated information into Edelweiss, book professionals such as booksellers, sales reps, publicists, librarians, and media will be able to see which titles have the most energy and excitement from the Goodreads community, as expressed through the overall shelf count.

"Goodreads is the world's largest social network for readers and we're really excited to be providing Edelweiss users with this information to help them to gauge which new titles are generating the most excitement from readers," said Treeline CEO John Rubin. "As with our Twitter and blog tracking, we think this will become another key piece of information within Edelweiss to support marketing efforts and buying decisions."

The image below is an example of the Edelweiss title detail page with the Goodreads buzz meter. Click on the image to go to the page within Edelweiss.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 44): Library demands, 30 Day Novels, D.H. Lawrence, Education, Internet Archiving

The demand on libraries grows and grows (The Economist):

The weak economy is forcing libraries to redefine their role. Close to 70% of America’s public libraries now say their staff help patrons complete job applications online, and the same number offer help with résumés. “Workforce Solutions”—as the state of New Mexico calls the dole—requires a weekly check-in. For many people, long queues or long journeys means it is only practical to do this online. Lynne Fothergill, a head librarian at Erna Fergusson, says she noticed an increasing number of online check-ins in early 2009; they are now a primary function of the library’s two 15-minute computer terminals.

Nationally, the number of libraries reporting that they help patrons with e-government services has risen by almost half. As with private employers, when state and local governments save money by moving services online, they actually shift some of those costs to the point of access: for many of those most likely to need jobs and benefits, this is the local library.

Perversely, computers are often more expensive for public libraries than for individuals, and harder to buy. In Albuquerque, any city purchase over $500 requires approval by a technical review committee. A single library desktop, with all of the officially necessary licences and security and session-management programmes, costs the city a whopping $1,800.

Write a novel in a month? (Independent):

And although there are plenty of tales of great novelists spending years crafting their masterpieces – Joseph Heller took eight years to write Catch-22 – many of the literary world's most popular works were knocked out in a few weeks, such as Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Lindsey Grant, who helps run NaNoWriMo, said that 55 novels written under the scheme have gone on to publication. These include Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, which spent 12 weeks in The New York Times best-sellers list in 2006. "The idea is to get the rough drafts of the novels down," Ms Grant said. "But so many people then go on to rewrite."Two years ago, Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks wrote a James Bond thriller, Devil May Care, in only six weeks – following the work pattern of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming."I enjoyed the rush," he said. "There was a way in which my own race to the finish line mirrored the chase of the plot. Novels that have been written quickly can retain a slightly torn-off, uneven quality – like life. This is certainly one of the miraculous things about Jean Brodie, where the story zooms back and forth through time. There is a careering, out-of-control feeling, which is exhilarating. The main danger is that the writer hasn't worked out his/her theme. They don't really know what the novel's about."

Behind The trail of Lady Chatterley's Lover (Independent):

Some were eager, and duly stepped into the witness box. E M Forster, for instance, wrote to Mr Rubenstein, calling the book "a literary work of importance", adding, "the law tells me that obscenity may deprave and corrupt, but as far as I know it offers no definition of depravity or corruption." With some willing to testify, there were complications. Aldous Huxley, for instance, wrote: "Lady Chatterley's Lover is an essentially wholesome book." But the long journey from his American home, and his request for $1,000 expenses meant he was kept in reserve, as were Iris Murdoch and T S Eliot. Eliot had, in the early Thirties, dismissed book and author, but now thought better of both and was prepared to appear. During the trial, he was on the defence team's substitutes' bench, and legend has it that, for several days, he sat outside the court in a taxi, the meter ticking all the while.Among prominent refuseniks were Evelyn Waugh and Robert Graves. Waugh's letter to Mr Rubenstein described the book as dull and pretentious, one whose publication would serve no private or public good. He ended with the verdict: "Lawrence had very meagre literary gifts." Graves's letter said of Lawrence: "I won't have a book of his on my shelves."

Even Field and Stream got into it:

The review read in part: "This fictional account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of interest to outdoor-minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the occasional gamekeeper. "Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour these sidelights on the management of a Midlands shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J R Miller's Practical Gamekeeper."

How to Fix our Schools a Manifesto (WaPo):

Just as we must give teachers and schools the capability and flexibility to meet the needs of students, we must give parents a better portfolio of school choices. That starts with having the courage to replace or substantially restructure persistently low-performing schools that continuously fail our students. Closing a neighborhood school -- whether it's in Southeast D.C., Harlem, Denver or Chicago -- is a difficult decision that can be very emotional for a community. But no one ever said leadership is easy. We also must make charter schools a truly viable option. If all of our neighborhood schools were great, we wouldn't be facing this crisis. But our children need great schools now -- whether district-run public schools or public charter schools serving all students -- and we shouldn't limit the numbers of one form at the expense of the other. Excellence must be our only criteria for evaluating our schools. For the wealthiest among us, the crisis in public education may still seem like someone else's problem, because those families can afford to choose something better for their kids. But it's a problem for all of us -- until we fix our schools, we will never fix the nation's broader economic problems. Until we fix our schools, the gap between the haves and the have-nots will only grow wider and the United States will fall further behind the rest of the industrialized world in education, rendering the American dream a distant, elusive memory.

Two e-Learning companies to begin selling online remedial courses to community colleges (Inside HE):

K12 has made only a few inroads in higher education; last summer one of its subsidiaries was rebuffed by an accrediting agency when it tried to take over operations at Rochester College, a four-year liberal arts college in Michigan. (K12’s collaboration with Middlebury College to deliver language instruction as part of a summer program has been more successful.) Davis said he will be pleased this time to have, in Blackboard, a co-pilot with a huge network of existing higher-ed clients.For Blackboard — which has sold online learning platforms and other services for years, but never courses — the deal also represents a new sort of business. Both sides say K12 will do most of the heavy lifting on course design and provide the labor from its stable of 2,700 instructors, while Blackboard will focus mainly on the technology. But the two companies say they will work together on all aspects of the product. Small, the chief business officer, said Blackboard does not currently sell courses past the remedial level. “Outside of this very targeted effort, we have no plans to move into the general areas of curriculum and instruction,” he said.

The Economist looks at efforts to archive the web (The Economist):

The biggest problem, for now, is money. The British Library estimates that it costs half as much to store a digital document as it does a physical one. But there are a lot more digital ones. America’s Library of Congress enjoys a specific mandate, and budget, to save the web. The British Library is still seeking one.

So national libraries have decided to split the task. Each has taken responsibility for the digital works in its national top-level domain (web-address suffixes such as “.uk” or “.fr”). In countries with larger domains, such as Britain and America, curators cannot hope to save everything. They are concentrating on material of national interest, such as elections, news sites and citizen journalism or innovative uses of the web.

The daily death of countless websites has brought a new sense of urgency—and forced libraries to adapt culturally as well. Past practice was to tag every new document as it arrived. Now precision must be sacrificed to scale and speed. The task started before standards, goals or budgets are set. And they may yet change. Just like many websites, libraries will be stuck in what is known as “permanent beta”.

From The Twitter this week - follow me @Personanondata: Conrad Black fails in attempt to clear his name Guardian DOI To Become Backbone of New Entertainment Content Registry Press Release Amazing Kindle book sales stats from The Bookseller Cornwell: "The tyranny of the Epos [computerized book tracking] can make it very difficult for the beginner." Guardian

Repost: Just Trying to Keep My Customers Satisfied

Originally published Jan 18, 2007:


I feel like a total monkey when I walk into Starbucks; that is, since I read Breaking the Trade-Off Between Efficiency and Service by Francis X. Frei in the November 2006 edition of The Harvard Business Review. The article is about how service businesses struggle with the impact customers have on their daily operations: the fact that customers interfere with the smooth running of their operations. Who hasn’t heard someone in the service business lament "…if it wasn’t for the customers this business would work perfectly."

Service business by definition rely on customer interaction. The problem is that this interaction is often unmanaged and unmanageable by the service provider. The impact of this is often seen in inconsistent service and the not insignificant task of service providers is to be able to deliver a consistent level of service despite the level of interruption by the customer.

Frei goes on to discuss five types of customer variability;

• Arrival - you can’t always anticipate when customers will show up
• Request - sometimes they want it their way
• Capability - perhaps the customer knows a lot and sometimes they are clueless which is especially relevant if they play an active role in the process
• Effort – the customer may be more or less willing to participate in the process
• Subjective Preference – Is the customer happy with hand-holding or embarrassed by it?

In managing the variability, the manager faces a choice of accommodating the variability or attempting to reduce it. This is a trade off that could bankrupt the organization if it goes to extremes in either direction. Offer no flexibility and customers leave; offer too much and it costs too much. The actual solution is more nuanced and Frei discusses a number of options and companies which have been able to maintain expected service levels without going broke.

Which is where the Starbucks reference is relevant.

I sometimes get a ‘bar’ drink at Starbucks rather than a regular coffee. As I stand in line I find myself reciting the proper syntax so that when I get to the counter I don’t embarrass myself by getting the order wrong. (The Economist recently recited a Starbucks bar drink order in an article, got it wrong and it was corrected in a letter to the editor – which they dutifully printed). Mine is a Grande, 2% Extra Hot, Whip, Hot Chocolate. Starbucks do this by design. If you notice the Starbucks employees call out the drinks each time, and this is to teach you the customer to remember it so you can get it right next time and reduce the variability, speed up the line and not embarrass yourself.

This article was given to me in relation to some consulting work I was doing, but it is interesting reading for anyone involved in the service business who needs to ensure a consistent cost effective customer experience.

Bali 1971: Parade

Bali 1971: Parade

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

This image looks like it was a staged tourist shot but I can't tell since other frames in the set seem to indicate that my parents came upon this group by accident. Either way it's a fun photo. All the women in their extremely colorful sarongs they look great and in the other images from the set even the 'locals' are caught watching the parade