Group items tagged

Many new releases have design elements usually reserved for special occasions - deckle edges, colored endpapers, high-quality paper and exquisite jackets that push the creative boundaries of bookmaking. If e-books are about ease and expedience, the publishers reason, then print books need to be about physical beauty and the pleasures of owning, not just reading.

I find it interesting that while some of us in the US are lamenting the decline of the book, in other places in the world books and book production are actually enjoying a surge....

A reflection on threats to sustained, immersive reading and the culture that produces it.

According to Young, changing technology is easy, changing cultural values is another story. Does this explain why readers are slow to embrace the e-book?

Find Hundreds of Free eBooks, Audio Books, and Textbooks at Open Culture

Bookish is a new online service for discovering and purchasing books. It's a joint venture of three of the largest trade publishers: Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Penguin. (Penguin will shortly be merging with Random House.)

Crowdfunding out-of-print books.

Always good to see small groups thinking outside the box and pooling their money to try something innovative.

We discussed in class how the Kindle has the ability to provide extra context for a book. It can tell a reader historical and cultural information so they have a better understanding of the book. Well, here is a website that is doing the same thing. It has maps, photos, videos and loads of extra information for readers. Check it out!

Why is publishing doing better than other "culture Industries"

"Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall." 2. They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of "electronic narcotics." 5. If they miss The Daily Show, they can always get their news on YouTube. 18. Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf. 27. Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for "save," a telephone for "phone," and a snail mail envelope for "mail" have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens. 35. Probably the most tribal generation in history, they despise being separated from contact with their similar-aged friends. 47. Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book. 56. They have always enjoyed school and summer camp memories with a digital yearbook. 71. Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes.

Tucked away in libraries across the country are unexpected archives and world-class treasures, including nurse romance novels, forgers and other frauds, and painted books.

Former editor of the New York Times Book Review, John Leonard, has passed. "The comma seemed to have been invented expressly for him."

Google Books has enabled the creation of a large datase of English words and phrases. The database is now available to the public and researchers.

No longer purely a vanity project, self-publishing is enjoying a boom, thanks to electronic readers.

It's all just a little bit of history repeating...some of these quotes sounds awfully familiar these days WRT lamenting how no one writes or reads paper anymore because of the frenetic pace of life.

Google Editions launches!  This should be fun to watch.

Strange how there is no Arts/Culture subject category to browse (film? music? art? photography? painting? dance?), since they have other categories defined...

Notes on why the novel and the Internet are opposites, and why the latter both undermines the former and makes it more necessary

Since this was a topic of discussion in last class and we didn't touch on this point....the future of libraries involves sharing their special collections digitally

Apparently in some places, the move to digital has been more pervasive than estimated.