As of next week the libraries of Jackson County, Oregon will have been closed to the public for 6 months. No storytime for kids, no books, movies or cd's for the residents, no book clubs and no internet access for the people most in need and most importantly one less place for people to get information.In April, the libraries ran out of federal money and were left to their own devices to fill the gap.In May, for the second time, voters failed to approve a tax increase that would have reopened the 15 libraries.The interim library director, Tom Stark, left...
Book Review: Illuminated by Matt Bronleewe
The bad guys need to round up 3 extant Gutenberg bibles so they can piece together a secret code through the illuminations and gain "immeasurable wealth while doing incalculable damage to two major religions." They kidnap the kid of a rare book dealer or "archeobibliologist" August Adams who's knowledge base is the only hope the bad guys have to figure out the mystery.Adam's wife also happens to be a librarian at the Library of Congress and has access to their copy of the Bible which is also needed for this operation. Her name is April.One of the main villains is...
Banned Books and the Presidents
Chris Finan, President of The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), reminds us that the whole concept of Banned Books Week is a direct response to the Republican Revolution that began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.Booksellers, librarians, and publishers celebrated the first Banned Books Week in 1982 against the background of a political and cultural counterrevolution. Many people saw the election of Ronald Reagan as a chance to strike back against the liberalization that had occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. On the local level, they began challenging hundreds of books that were used in schools...
"A Book in a Store is Worth 20 on a Web Site"
Holland Cotter has an inspiring review of the NY Art Book Fair in Saturday's New York Times. His piece titled Art Between Covers, on Walls and in Your Hands is a refreshing reminder that there is still life in books."A book in a store is worth 20 on a Web site," is how he begins his story. Cotter then gives us three good reasons why the book in a public space experience is vital to the health of our culture:1- "you can check out the book’s contents and condition without buying."It doesn't matter how good a return policy the e-tailer's...
Endpapers
Endpaper illustration by Ben Kutcher from the 1925 edition of Oscar Wilde's House of Pomegranates 1925end·pa·per: a once-folded sheet of paper having one leaf pasted flat against the inside of the front or back cover of a book and the other pasted at the base to the first or last page.For a more in-depth definition see the Etherington & Roberts entry in their bookbinding and conservation focused Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology.Romeo Looks For a Job by Alain Gree 1966There is an online show with 70+ examples of endpapers hosted by Nancy Stahl at Drawger.com, a website "where illustrators are writing...