Today is World Book Day, a "worldwide celebration of books and reading"in the UK.For scheduling reasons the UK has celebrated on March 1st. For the rest of us we have to wait until April 23rd for World Book Day which happens to also be the day that both Shakespeare and Cervantes died.No matter what world you live in this is a big day."A main aim of World Book Day is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own"What else can you ask for.Whenever you...
One Way To Attract Attention To Your Bookstore
"I just couldn't take it anymore, so I put up the sign" says Nancy Locken owner of Auntie Em's bookstore in Minneapolis.She says that if anything the sign has helped business and that she finally doesn't feel "so helpless and hopeless anymore"Locken is also offering her customers a free sign with every purchase.A couple of people have come in and complained about the sign but since they didn't buy anything Locken says she will "save her consideration for her paying customers and for the poor soldiers that have been so cruelly used and abandoned by George Bush and his cronies"The...
The New Breed of Booksellers and ‘The Bookish Social Networks’
Another instant YouTube biblio classic.New York's Street Booksellers from Jason Rosette's movie BookWars (via Sean Flannagan)Flannagan, who among other things, is the associate web director for the seminal cultural establishment the 92nd Street Y in New York City.His website is Deeplinking.net.His post "The Big List of Bookish Social Networks" is the most comprehensive I've seen on the subject to date. From LibraryThing and Shelfari to Douban, a "bookish community site aimed at some of the world’s 1.1 billion Chinese speakers". Like Flanaghan "I’ve yet to find a book-oriented social network that’s inspired me to register".The comment to the post left...
Coming Soon: The First Annual Book Blog and Web Awards
Well after all it is the day after the Oscars.The Seventh Annual Weblog Award nominees were announced recently and for at least the fourth year in a row there isn't one book blog to be found.C. Max Magee at The Millions (A Blog About Books) had a great post this past week titled "The Assimilation of the Book Blog" were he addresses this annual snub of book bloggers.I have noticed that at times it seems difficult for sites to find the right category for the book blog. For example: Book Patrol posts are occasionally picked up by Reuters.com. The are...
Public Library Issue #1
Let's hope we can figure out a better way to deal with this issue.Someone told me the other day that they went to the library to get a recent bestseller. It was checked out. They were told there were something like 200 people already on the list for the book when it comes back in! Clearly an unacceptable situation. If that many people in your community are waiting for the book then the community is not being properly served by their library system. This is where POD (print on demand) technology can do the most good.I touched on this in...