Here's the deal:The Seattle Public Library bought this roving library three years ago to serve the various populations that can't easily get to any of their 25 branches. Day care centers, assisted living facilities and underserved neighborhoods all benefit greatly from this book bus.But, lo and behold, the bookmobile is up for sale.How can that be?Because its too big. Our beloved city of Seattle is pretty near impossible for a car to drive in let alone a book RV, we have so many hills that there only a few places you can drive straight. Why this wasn't apparent 3 years...
Books: The Last Physical Media Product That Makes Sense
That's how Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired Magazine and creator of The Long Tail concept, put it during his keynote at the inaugural O'Reilly Media Tools of Change for Publishing Conference taking place this week in San Jose.The goals of the conference are:-To raise "the level of technology knowledge and discourse in the publishing industry"-To provide "a meeting ground for everyone involved in the future of publishing"It's a big week and I suspect a much more relevant one these days than the recently held BookExpo.As comforted as I was by Anderson's acknowledgment of the staying power of the book I...
Gotham Breathing
Robert Schuster's piece in the Village Voice "The Gotham Book Mart's Final Chapter" confirms that we haven't heard the last of it."Something's cooking," and "important things happening" is what people in the know are saying."Don't issue a death certificate just yet" says Schuster.Why is this not surprising? The more you talked to veteran booksellers after the auction shenanigans the more you got the sense that this was not the end. There were still too many unanswered questions for it to be over. At minimum, the sheer carnival of the auction guaranteed a second act.The auctioner Eliot Millman sums up the...
Google, The Big Ten and Digital Escrow
In on fell swoop Google has significantly increased the number of libraries they have under contract and has introduced a new species of digitization; digital escrow.By corralling the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of the libraries of the Big Ten and the University of Chicago, Goggle brings the number of partner libraries to 25 and add over 78,000,000 potential items to their digi-mix.Some of terms of the agreement:-The CIC makes at least a 10,000,000 volume commitment.-Google "reserves final discretion over which Available Content it will Digitize."-Google shall own all rights to their copy and can use it at...
Submergible
Bachelor - The Dual Body by the South Korean artist Ki-bong Rhee2003, plexiglass, steel, water, book, water pump,light150 x 65 x 196 cmThe concept came to Rhee after he accidentally dropped a book in the bathtub. While watching the closed book fall into the tub he began contemplating the effect the water was having on the "rigid" solitary book.In the piece the book is submerged in a tank of water and set in motion, transcending its solitary closed state into a dreamy fish-like dance across time.In a 2004 interview in Para 21 Rhee was asked about the piece and said...