James LaRue - myliblog

CHICAGO - The following open letter was released by American Library Association (ALA) President Maureen Sullivan regarding Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin refusal to provide access to their ebooks in U.S. libraries. The open letter states: It’s a rare thing in a free market when a customer is refused the ability to buy a company’s product and is told its money is “no good here.” Surprisingly, after centuries of enthusiastically supporting publishers’ products, libraries find themselves in just that position with purchasing ebooks from three of the largest publishers in the world. Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin have been denying access to their ebooks for our nation’s 112,000 libraries and roughly 169 million public library users. Let’s be clear on what this means: If our libraries’ digital bookshelves mirrored the New York Times fiction bestseller list, we would be missing half of our collection any given week due to these publishers’ policies. The p...

I haven't tried this yet, but it looks handy: converting wikipedia articles into DRM-free ebooks .

This is about one of the most brilliant campaigns I have ever seen to reframe a political contest. Troy Library from Jennie Hochthanner on Vimeo .

I know that evidence hardly has anything at all to do with political persuasion. But I submit nonetheless that this article, called, Do tax cuts lead to economic growth? by David Leonhardt, is an absolutely crucial contribution to our current debate. The article was published in the Sept. 16, 2012 New York Times, The Sunday Review, page 4. Let's start with the graph (and click to expand). To quote Leonhardt, "Bill Clinton and the elder George Bush both raised taxes in the early 1990s, and conservatives predicted disaster. Instead, the economy boomed, and incomes grew at their fastest pace since the 1960s. Then came the younger Mr. Bush, the tax cuts, the disappointing expansion and the worst downtown since the Depression." Leonhardt calls this "one of the most serious challenges to modern conservativism." Now Romney is promising -- as the centerpiece of his economic plan, apparently -- more tax cuts, and inevitable economic growth as a consequence. But ...

Recently I read through the graphic novel series, "Y: the Last Man," by Brian Vaughan, and illustrator Pia Guerra. This is the paperback run published through 2003-2008. It's a stunning work. The premise of the story is that in 2002, all over the world, every male mammal dies, apparently simultaneously. Yorick Brown, a recent college grad and an amateur escape artist, and his capuchin monkey, Ampersand, are literally the last man and male monkey. What works: the characters in the story are very well done, with surprising depth. Also surprising is that there really isn't a lot of sex in what some might imagine to be a lurid male fantasy. What doesn't work so much for me was the trope of crazed female warriors, a sort of Mad Max ThunderDome post-apocaplypse scenario. I suppose that comic books have to have some combat. But I really wondered how likely it would be that women would immediately adopt the violent approach to problem resolution that so many of the ...

Sterling, CO is out in the eastern plains. And this Journal Advocate article is one the few, and one of the clearest pieces I've seen in the public media about the topic. It's baffling to me that the local Denver Post recently did an editorial about the Department of Justice decision that consumers were being ripped off by agency pricing -- and yet local media does not seem interested in the far more overt gouging of libraries.

In a recent press release , ALA President Maureen Sullivan talked about how librarians reached out in good faith to Big Six publisher Hachette, had cordial discussions, and left thinking that we'd laid a foundation for a solid and mutually beneficial relationship. Then came the kicker: this week Hachette raised its prices for backlist titles (it still won't sell new titles to libraries) by up to 220%. One can't help but think of the music industry. In an effort to hold onto corporate profits, the price of the packaging kept going up and up. Eventually, there was a consumer revolt, and disruptive new business models (as in the more consumer-friendly iTunes). Now think about those changes: today, there's no shortage of music. In fact, there's more than ever. But those music publishers who used to run things don't, so much. Most interestingly, musicians now often give their music away, finding it a far surer strategy to success. In the world of abundance, the p...