A couple of weeks ago the Seventh Annual Weblog Award nominations were announced and for the seventh year in a row there wasn't a book related blog anywhere near the stage. There are categories for best food blog, best sports blog, best weblog about music, politics,entertainment and even one for best writing of a weblog but no book blogs.Now there is a new story out at Forbes called "An Exercise in Collecting". It appears in the Art & Collectibles part of the Personal Finance section.It starts off with this quote "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the...
BookWise: The Book Worlds First Pyramid Scheme
I know the book industry is changing but this one takes the cake.What is BookWise:"BookWise is a book-club / network marketing company with a structure that is not only unique to both the book and network marketing industries, but takes the best from both worlds to help our Associates build a library as well as a lucrative home business.""BookWiseTM is the brainchild of #1 bestselling author Richard Paul Evans. Shortly after Evans wrote his internationally bestselling financial book The Five Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Wealth, he began looking for ways for his readers to "win in...
The Newest Library Technology
It is called DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and is now available in many libraries. It is probably one of the most important technologies currently available to libraries for reaching out to the kids they serve.Here is a clip from a DDR booth at the recent ALA Mid-Winter Meetings in Seattle:Thanks to the Shifted Librarian for the lead
Can You Take a BookHint? AbeBooks Does It Again
In another blaring act of AbeBooks.com's systematic neglect of the booksellers who put the company on the map they announced today the release of BookHints. A book recommendation feature that utilizes their current hot property LibraryThing.Basically it is the Amazon recommends technology with better visuals and instead of using an algorithm it uses the books in their users library to come up with suggestions.With only 10% of the listings on Abebooks having been fitted with the BookHint technology why the press release now? Can you say Shelfari. It wasn't more than a few days ago when the news of Amazon's...
Now They Are Blowing the Books Up
A car bomb went off in the Mutanabi Book Market in the historic booksellers’ district in Baghdad. The market named after an Iraqi poet who lived in the 10th century was once the gathering place of the city's intellectuals.The explosion killed more than 20 people and injured at least 65. There are no estimates as to how many books were destroyed or damaged.The ongoing madness in Iraq has already severely impacted the city's library system. All you need to do is read the journal of the Saad Eskander, the head of the National Archives in Iraq who reports on the...