Clipping Service

NY Magazine takes a look at British author/artist Graham Rawle who has constructed a book entirely from the clippings of Women's World magazine. The concept wouldn't be unfamiliar to a six year old but his application is sophisticated and impressive. In reading his noted points to the image, you get a glimpse of his process. Some of the plot characteristics were a direct result of what elements (words and phases) were in the text of the articles. For example, he picks 'Hands' as a surname because the word is frequently used in the magazine.

A mash up of the first order: One wonders how something like this could be constructed in a web environment.



In my comment to the article I said the following:

What about copy editing? Reading this I was amused by the thought of some exasperated editor trying to reword or add punctuation. Would they need their own inventory of clippings? Not something the average six year old would be unfamiliar with but a really interesting application.

Gaming the Library

Big, Stuffy, Parental New York Public Library is counter to expectation a big gamer. A recent article in the NYT tells how the library is far more with it and in tune with a segment of its target audience than we might otherwise believe.

Under the Beaux-Arts arches of Astor Hall at the New York Public Library’s flagship building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, thumping hard-rock beats mixed with tennis-ball thwacks and the screech of burning tires late Friday afternoon, as the library showed off the latest addition to its collections of books, films, music and maps: video games. Beneath the engraved names of august benefactors like John Jacob Astor and Simon Guggenheim, several hundred children, young adults and the people who love them virtually jumped, drove, battled and rocked out as the library celebrated its burgeoning “Game On @ the Library!” initiative.

The library has been loaning out games since 2006, but they are expanding the program in a big way. It is all to reach out to that illusive audience that in the words of one attendee "you don’t see too many kids my age in a place like this to check out a book." He's fifteen.

Borders UK

There seems to be a revolving door at the offices of Borders UK. Last week the company announced that Commercial Director David Kohn, who was bought in from W H Smith at the end of 2006 would leave the company in April. Kohn's had responsibility for buying and marketing and hence this is possibly a more critical loss than the loss several weeks ago of the CEO David Roche.

Borders UK was purchased last year (from Borders US) by ex-Pizza Express founder Luke Johnson. Johnson is also currently chairman of UK's Channel four television. It is probable that philosophical differences with the Chairman on store merchandising, negotiation and store closings have had something to do with both departures.

Bertelsmann Is Cautious

The Times Online takes a critical view of Bertelsmann's strategic vision but does note that since they are a family owned business maybe the criticism doesn't matter:

All this is a far cry from the swashbuckling days of Thomas Middelhoff, the Anglophile chief executive who was booted out after thinking that he might persuade the Mohns to float. Mr Middelhoff bought Random House, did the deals that made RTL, now the best business, and made a ridiculous sum, $7 billion, on a half-share of AOL Europe. Now, there is a cosier approach, where keeping the family happy matters too much. Remarkably, there is almost no Asian business and not much internet to talk about, although Hartmut Ostrowski, the new chief executive, talks about changing that. Yet a limited appetite for risk is already being seen in limited rewards, with profits up by only 3.4 per cent last year.

Google Print Integration

I always wondered at my own immediate need for 10,000 e-book titles available on things like the Kindle and Sony e-Reader. Give me an e-Book library of my librarything.com titles then I might be interested. The idea that I could browse the full text of my collection on librarything has far more relevance for me than a e-Book catalog that's just BIG. And what do you know? We are almost there because librarything.com announced an integration with Google Book Search several weeks ago and on the site a user can link to the text of many of the titles in their collection. The links aren't universal but as a taste of what is surely inevitable it is a great step forward.

Other companies are jumping on the API bandwagon. ExLibris announced they have integrated a link to 'About this Book' pages on Google Book Search. From their press release:

Using a new “viewability” application programming interface (API) supported by Google Book Search, library patrons can now enhance their findings with Google Book Search features such as full text, book previews, cover thumbnails, and a mashup from Google Maps linking pages in a book describing a specific place to its location on the world map. Use of this “viewability” API has been added to the Ex Libris Primo® discovery and delivery solution, SFX® context-sensitive link resolver, and the Aleph® and Voyager® integrated library systems.

In the ILS world everyone plays follow the leader so the links should start appearing in all the other vendors products if they haven't already. Libraries have long had the ability to gather content in a similar manner (not full text) from Amazon.com. Many have done this successfully to augment (prettify) their catalogs, but the Google option will prove to be compelling both because of the potential breadth of content in the 'About the Book' package but also the limited commercial nature of the Google Book Program. The Google Book Program could become the primary distribution mechanism for publishers into libraries: Imagine every ILS using the Google API and publishers making their titles available via a subscription/lending module. All of this at very low capital expense for publishers.

The other interesting aspect of the Exlibris implementation is the integration with the SFX link resolver. How this will develop could also be interesting for the discovery of journals and articles.

Over on Exact Editions, Adam had some related thoughts on this.

Also, I had an additional thought that it may be Microsoft that has the better Publisher workbench/toolkit for managing access to their content from what I saw at their presentations last year. Where they are in their relationships to library intermediaries is anyone's guess however.

Book Expo America

I have been shanghaied into arranging a panel discussion at Book Expo in LA. It will be interesting and I am looking for several more panelists. Please let me know if you would like to participate and or if you have any recommendations as to who I could ask to participate.

The following is a draft of the panel discription:

Digital Bundling: Considerations, Combinations & Costs
Most publishers are committed to allowing consumers access to electronic versions of their books whether on their own account or via programs such as the Google Book program. Some publishers are going a step further and are allowing consumers to interact with and create their own products using the publisher’s content. As publisher’s build their content databases, digital bundling will become a significant part of the product mix and will change the concept of the customer – from bookstore to consumer - and the concept of the product – from book to service. Rapid improvements in technology will enable ‘mass customization’ of publishing products and will fundamentally change the relationship with customers.
While many publishers are still tentative in their e-book experiments others are already experimenting with digital bundling. As these publishers experiment, what are their experiences, what are the issues and what costs exist as these publishers engage their customers in new and revolutionary ways? Hear from publishers who are experimenting or are contemplating launching making their content available to consumers for new and exciting products.

Moderator: Michael Cairns, Information Media Partners
Thursday May 29th: 11am - 12pm
Panelists:

Penguin Redux

Email subscribers may not have been able to view the Penguin newstory from Reuters that I noted last week.

Here is the link:

http://www.reuters.com/resources/flash/includevideo.swf?edition=US&videoId=78374