2018 School Spending Survey Report
>Feed me.
>A couple of weeks ago, in the aftermath of telling Alan Kaufman to do a not very nice thing to himself, I asked him to name names of the "high-tech propagandists" who tell us that we will be better off without books.
. . . the techies in Silicon Valley are giving us powerful new tools for telling stories. Scary because the old ways of telling stories are about to become obsolete, and if we cling to them, we'll be washed away. In the past we've all worked in silos. "Print people" had one way of describing the world. "Video people" had another. But the silos are getting crunched together. It's as if for most of your life you could get by speaking only English, but now you need to learn a bunch of other old languages, and, what's more, you must then master a new language that is evolving out of the DNA of all the old ones.
Newsweek journalist Dan Lyons is primarily speaking about news-delivery here, but he does lump in book reading along with all the other exciting things that full-time connection to the Internet is going to give us: "these devices will play video and music and, of course, display text; they will let you navigate by touching your fingers to the screen; and—this is most important—they will be connected to the Internet at all times." Coming from a generation that was always admonished to turn out the light when leaving a room, I do wonder who is going to pay for the apparently unproblematic necessity for lots and lots of electricity. And as for being connected to the Internet at all times--Alan, pass me a pitchfork.
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Andy Laties
>Well I think the American Booksellers Association's letter to the DOJ happens in context of decades of activism against monopolism in the arena of consumer activity. So, I disagree with Alan that there is something new happening with the current round of price wars. It's a longstanding battle and shouldn't be thought of as criminal in a human rights sense. (I am on the same side in the battle as Alan of course.) It's a battle about homogenization of culture. Not the same as genocide, because those affected (like me as an independent bookstore owner who's operated four different stores) do not get physically killed when our stores die. I am alive. I continue to help open and operate new bookstores whenever I get the chance, which happens regularly. People still want to see new bookstores open in their neighborhood. (Hurrah for the brand new and brilliant Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn!)For instance this article below compares the anti-chain store movement of the1990s (and more recently too) with a previous anti-chain store movement in the 1930s that actually resulted in the passage of the laws now being drawn on in our current battles (such as the Robinson Patman Act). So -- it's been a cyclical thing. We are fighting. It's not by any means a done deal that independent voices will lose.
"The Anti-Chain Store Movement and the Politics of Consumption"
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/american_quarterly/v060/60.4.scroop.html
Posted : Oct 24, 2009 02:44
Melinda
>Here's the Canadian take on the deep-discounting going on in America: They're against it, God bless 'em.http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/715182--why-the-book-price-wars-haven-t-come-to-canada
Word verification: defics, which I take to mean "depicts" and "defies." I get some real doozies.
Posted : Oct 23, 2009 05:50
Alan Kaufman
>It would seem that my hunch that the war against the book amounts to an actual crime is not far off...and I believe that as travel further into this heart of darkness, to uncover and discover all its implications, we will see that it's not simply a crime of business standards violation but as I allege in my essay, an actual crime against humanity.Booksellers Ask Justice Department To Investigate War Over Pricing---from the Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574489891863465178.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook
Posted : Oct 23, 2009 05:16
Melinda
>I also worry about the folks who can't afford all these devices. The national guidelines for poverty haven't been revised since 1955, so there are a lot more poor folks out there than we'd like to believe. These are hard times; library use is up. Looks to me like the book still lives.Sherman Alexie rants about Kindles -- I agree with him of COURSE. http://bit.ly/4gQFLj
Word verification: brapp: the sound of all my hot air.
Posted : Oct 22, 2009 02:57
Andy Laties
>In that Buzz Machine blogpost, Jeff Jarvis makes a fascinating statement amid his insulting comments about books: He says that he is soon going to write a book himself! In other words, book publishing evidently still does some things that he himself considers important.What hypocrisy! Why would anyone read and pay heed to such internally contradictory commentary? And yet, as Alan essentially is suggesting, people will pay attention to him indeed! And I seriously doubt that Jarvis will forego the author advance, royalty payments, author interviews on the radio, citations by other writers, and classroom adoptions that will be the possible outcomes of his writing a book about how The Book Is Dead.
Posted : Oct 22, 2009 12:53