I realize this is old news for many of you by now (a full 24 hours after the story broke) but I waited until I was home and — donning my writer’s hat — could compose my thoughts about the discovery that Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory is composed of lies, damn lies, and [...]
Last week the ever-interesting Barbara Fister observed over on Inside Higher Ed, People are beginning to notice that big publishers are not really all that interested in authors or readers; they are interested in consolidating control of distribution channels so that the only participants in culture are creators who work for little or nothing and [...]
Back in 2004 I coined a term, “biblioblogosphere,” that managed to catch on. I wasn’t trying to coin a term. (What an interesting phrase, involving smelting and mints and all that.) I was just writing, and that’s the word that came out–not a hyphenated expression, not a malapropism, just a word, intended to be humorous–long, [...]
Here is a very interesting question others have posed: are libraries that license ebooks through Overdrive violating state patron-privacy laws because Amazon retains user data? (For context, Sarah Houghton-Jan, who last spring proposed an eBook User’s Bill of Rights, recently taped a video recording her thoughts about the Overdrive-Amazon deal enabling Overdrive books to be [...]
Last weekend on Twitter I saw a post: “Tell me your favorite books on failing and failure, especially as it relates to innovation and leadership.” I responded with this comment: “another blog post I don’t have time 2 write: how failure is overrated, & often confused w iterative design.” I got up a little earlier [...]
In response to my vision of Bristlecone – a preservation plan for literary journals — Mary Molinaro wrote, Her idea of a preservation plan for literary journals, named Bristlecone, has some positive aspects, but I think misses the mark on so many levels. [1] The basic goal of preserving a last copy of these literary [...]
Scuppernongs and Muscadines Originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian I spoke at a writing association recently where I noted that it takes me several years to finish an essay. I saw dismay on the faces of aspiring memoirists (since like many new writers they wanted to be told that their focus should be on finding agents and [...]
Saturday, September 12, 7 p.m. at the Babylon Salon in San Francisco, I will be reading from my essay “The Outlaw Bride,” which will appear in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 (due out in October). I’m thrilled about this on many fronts: giving a reading, getting published in a book that not just my [...]
For a couple of years I have had an idea completely unrelated to my current field of endeavor. The idea — tentatively named Bristlecone, for the oldest surviving pine trees — is, quite simply, a preservation plan for literary journals. The problem, in a nutshell No matter how passionately committed the publishing agency for any [...]
David Pogue, tech enthusiast for the New York Times, is shocked, shocked that Amazon yanked Orwell’s books from the Kindle. But as Tim Spalding pointed out over on Web4Lib, it’s naïve to focus on Amazon and the Kindle. “People need to get over the idea that ebooks are ‘just’ books,” Tim wrote. “Just because you [...]
