Library Stuff

AP – “Once upon a time, there was a bookstore. One day, the bookstore went away and reopened online with a new name and a mission to combat childhood illiteracy.
The rest of the story of year-old e-tailer MonkeyReader.com is still being written but its founders hope the ending will be happy — and successful. “We’re beginning, we’re growing, we have a lot of great ideas,” co-founder David Lenett of the venture, a successor of the Discovery Bookshop, a popular Philadelphia children’s bookstore that closed in the 1990s and became an online storefront that evolved into the more interactive MonkeyReader site.”

Chronicle of Higher Education – “rain his or her brain to the habits of long-form reading, in any given culture, few people will want to. And that’s to be expected. Serious “deep attention” reading has always been and will always be a minority pursuit, a fact that has been obscured in the past half-century, especially in the United States, by the dramatic increase in the percentage of the population attending college, and by the idea (only about 150 years old) that modern literature in vernacular languages should be taught at the university level.”

Dallas Morning News – “E-readers are superior to paper books for a lot of reasons, from the massive number of volumes a single device can hold to the ability to wirelessly download titles without your ever setting foot in a bookstore.
But if you just don’t feel right reading without a physical book in your hand, husband-and-wife team John and Connie Cullen have found a way to bring both worlds together. The inBook case is a hardback book with the pages carved out to hold models of the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook e-readers.”

James Warren – “As Chicago’s political past and present were in mutual-admiration overdrive on Thursday, the city’s future was 100 feet away, paying no attention to all the conviviality and diligently using crayons on illustrations of jazz musicians. “I get to read, color and get on the computer,” said Nishon Luke, 7, merrily toiling in the children’s section of the new Richard M. Daley branch library on a desultory stretch of West Humboldt Park along Kedzie Avenue.”

AP – “Authors with Illinois ties can see themselves listed alongside some literary giants, thanks to an online database. The Illinois Authors Wiki lists authors from Abraham Lincoln to Gwendolyn Brooks to Studs Terkel. Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White — who also serves as the state’s librarian — is encouraging writers to submit their names for possible listing on the site.”

More here

Boston Globe – “THE LIQUIDATION of Borders Books, announced last week, is like the death of an unlikely friend – unlikely because Borders was itself implicated in the slow-motion degradation of the culture of the book. The story began in 1971, when brothers Tom and Louis Borders, students at the University of Michigan, established a book shop in Ann Arbor. They were among the first to grasp the potential of digital technology, inventing software that revolutionized how inventories were tracked. Borders became a book-selling powerhouse. The company proved insufficiently nimble, though, when online ordering – via Amazon or the Barnes & Noble website – transformed the point of sale, and digital files – via Kindle, Nook, or iPad – replaced paper publication entirely. The technology that made Borders boom ultimately killed it.”

Jacket Copy – “Haruki Murakami has some obsessive fans who’d do anything to get their hands on his next book. When his novel “1Q84″ was released in Japan in 2009, it was under a closely held embargo. The book is slated for U.S. release Oct. 24. Because it’s already out there, any hard-core English-speaking Murakami fan could go to an online translator, or better yet, a Japanese friend, to get a peek at what’s inside. But they wouldn’t have the actual official translation.”

Can’t!  Wait!

Oregon Live – “Be a part of the next chapter of library services in Washington County. Library patrons are invited to grab their favorite books, either from their home collections or the library, and have their photographs professionally taken — for free. Join in the celebration!”

The Oklahoman – “It didn’t matter that the library was closed Sunday night when Lanie James wanted to borrow her next book. James, dressed in her pajamas, downloaded several electronic books to her iPad using an application called the OverDrive Media Console.
Many local libraries, including the 17 libraries that make up the Metropolitan Library System, are adding and expanding electronic book services. Those services essentially create a virtual library, which allows users to access books on the go, any time of day.”

The State – “It’s Monday morning in a classroom at USC. A small group of students is talking about the latest movie to open over the weekend. “I just can’t help but be critical if it doesn’t stay true to the story,” says a student from two rows back. “Whether something stays true to the book or not doesn’t bother me,” chimes in another before the professor calls the class to order