Book Patrol shared this video, from CBS, where a few bilbliomaniac’s, in France, were followed around and asked about their obsessions. At times it makes me want to throw everything to the wind and become a book scout. I wonder how I would fair with just Birmingham and Atlanta to farm?
Font Forest
Now, this is something I’d like to see in person… and add a few to my own house. I can’t imagine a better library addition, other than more books, that is.
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Book Collecting Contest
The 3rd Annual Student Book Collecting Contest, over in Tuscaloosa, is under way. Both graduate students and undergraduate students have until March 27th to catalog and submit their entries. There is an essay to write and it turns out that 80% of the book collection, er, must be books… hmmm. Seems they are allowing some cd’s and dvd’s to be included… anyway… there are cash prizes with the 1st Place winner getting $500 and a chance to compete in Fine Books & Collections annual competition.
Awards are April 16th at Gorgas Library and might just be worth the drive from Birmingham, if the collectors show enough creativity and fun with their book collections.
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Amazon listening?
Last year Amazon spent a lot of time throwing its weight around, trying to squash and curtail the activities of smaller publishers and booksellers on its site. But just last week, they have shown that they are capable of listening and working with consumers… when they see a threat to there own product line anyway.
The new Kindle has a text-to-speech feature which allows a reader to become listener as an automaton voice recites the text, which didn’t seem like a big deal to me. But agents and lawyers saw it differently, claiming it infringes on their ability to sell rights to the book for the audio-book format. At first, Amazon said ‘no’. But evidently they have had a chnage of heart and will give publishers the chance to opt-in/out to this feature. Which is really how things should be done, across the board these days. It’s 2009 and there is no reason why a content owner shouldn’t be given a choice of how their content will be made available.
I’m not much of a fan of the K2. It seems to be the device they should have put out there as the first one. And maybe they agree? The rumor mill is already cranking out “Kindle 3 by the end of the year” stories and some look to have merit. Which if they are truw, will put the Kindle in a place to remain competitive.
