Mac Slocum over on the O-Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing blog offers up a neat twist to the debate of e-books vs. paper books… what if we had all been using e-books for the past few hundred years and paper books were just coming on the market? Would we all laugh at the paperback, or as the new kid on the block, would it capture our attention and spark a movement?
He lists out the benfits of the new unplugged book model: no need to buy batteries, lasts a loooooong time, ultra portable, ultra cheap, etc. All these things almost put the old e-book model to shame, huh?
Slocum calls it the flip test and it sure seems a good way to look at both sides of an equation.
Thanks to Carla Jean Whitley for the mention in the August issue of Birmingham Magazine. Very cool! So everyone go out and buy a copy so you can tell all your friends “hey, I read that book blog”… but seriously she put together a great list of what the article calls “The Essentials… must-visit websites that will guide you through the city”.
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. It’s fun keeping this site going and even more so when you know folks are reading. Plus, she got every last punctuation mark correct in {head}:sub/head. Why is that important to me? I dunno. It just is… and you have to appreciate someone that pays attention to detail like that.
The Birmingham Museum of Art has opened an online doorway into their art library. If you’ve never been, there are tons of cool books there that aren’t available anywhere else in town. So many of the 35,000 items, you can’t check out. As of right now, the site is a bit bare bones and takes a few trial searches to figure your way through the catalog. But it’s a great resource for research or inspiration. Thanks to the powers-that-be that helped make this available! {via Emmet O’Neal}
Portico Managing Editor, Amanda Manning has penned a piece on a handful of our local bookstores. Her article is slated to run in the September issue. Manning has only called Birmingham home for a few years, so she graciously answered a few quick questions for me about her article and other bookish goodness.
