This is Jason Burns on the competition the Internet poses to small camera stores:So times have changed. Internet businesses are often the first place to look. [...] This mythical “support and experience” that the mom and pop [...] store provides is just not accurate. [...] It’s time to take a hard look at your approach. If your business exists on the premise of screwing your customer in the name of small town goodness, it’s time to lock your doors [...].Though the differences between camera stores and bookshops are apparent, it's the last sentence that really grabbed me. The appeal to...
MASHUP: Book Fair Supplies List + Alice in Wonderland
A recent discussion on a bookselling email list about things to bring to a book fair elicited this interpretation from Rare Book School's Terry Belanger, for whom the "list reminded me of the Mouse's tail in Alice in Wonderland":[Click for full-size image]Thanks Terry!
The Library in the New Age
Robert Darnton in the current New York Review of Books on the continuing importance of physical libraries and books:Information has never been stable. That may be a truism, but it bears pondering. It could serve as a corrective to the belief that the speedup in technological change has catapulted us into a new age, in which information has spun completely out of control. I would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself. It should not be understood as if it took the form of hard facts or nuggets of reality ready...
Book Thief on the Run
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7417810.stm
10 Wacky How-To Books
The folks at Listanity have put together a list of the "The 10 Craziest How-To Books You Never Knew Existed." All are still in print and available.The list:How To Shit in the WoodsHow To Have Sex in the WoodsHow To Be PopeHow To Start your Own CountryHow to Be Happy Though MarriedHow to Rent a NegroHow To Lose Friends and Alienate PeopleHow To Become A SchizophrenicHow To Read a Book How to Speak with the DeadThere really is no limit to what you can learn though books.Thanks to Neatorama for the lead