Book Patrol

The Cost of Reading in Prison: In West Virginia it’s 5 cents a minute

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It is hard to fathom how they got here but the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation is charging inmates to read! As part of their contract with a private company inmates are provided "free" tablets in which they can access Project Gutenberg, an emporium of free, public domain texts. Sounds great right? Well, seems like free ain't free. From the Appalachian Prison Book Project: The per-minute charge will bring in far more profit than an e-book vendor who charges a set price for downloads, as the cost to read a book far exceeds the cost to purchase one....

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An app for Chaucer with an assist from Monty Python’s Terry Jones

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An international team led by the University of Saskatchewan's Peter Robinson has created the first web and mobile phone app of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. It features an audio performance of the General Prologue along with the digitized version of the original manuscript. While listening to the reading you can access supporting content such as a translation in modern English, commentary, notes and vocabulary explaining Middle English words used by Chaucer. “We have become convinced, over many years, that the best way to read the Tales is to hear it performed—just as we imagine that Chaucer himself might have performed it...

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In the Stacks: Fire at the Library

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Street lined with fire engines during Los Angeles Central Library fire It was the largest library fire in the history of the United States. 400,000 books were destroyed and over 700,000 were damaged by water or smoke. It took firefighters over seven hours to put out the fire with little flare ups continuing for several days.  The epic blaze was the basis of Susan Orlean’s 2018 bestselling and New York Times Notable Book of the year, The Library Book.  Here are some images of the fire gleaned from the digital collections of the UCLA library.  They are all from the...

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Another beautiful book space appears in China, this one in a paddy field

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Beijing based Trace Architecture Office has devised this beautiful bookshop to sit between the walls of an old abandoned building in rural China. The shop sits on a paddy field on the outskirts of Xiadi Village in Fuijian province and will be operated by Librairie Avant-Garde, an independent book shop with locations across China. You might remember the name Librairie Avant-Garde, for many believe their shop beneath Wutaichan Stadium in Nanjing is the most beautiful bookshop in China.  Of course, this shop is called Paddy Field Bookstore! More on the architectural particulars of this gorgeous space at de zeen Previously...

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First Book and Disney: A match made in heaven or… maybe not

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  First Book, a non-profit whose mission is to work to provide equal access to quality education, recently announced that they've now distributed 75 million Disney books to children and educators in need.  Their tweet: Through our longstanding relationship with @Disney and @DisneyBooks we've reached an incredible milestone: together we've provided over 75 MILLION books to the children & educators we serve! We just wanted to say THANK YOU! #magicofstorytelling Founded in 1992 First Book has distributed over 185 million books to date. Almost half of which have come from Disney. While it is hard to argue about the need...

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