A few friends sent this one along; thought I’d share.
— Ms. Nancy
By day, Andy Woodworth is a mild-mannered librarian. By night, he’s still a librarian, just less mild-mannered.
Andy is kind of famous in the librarian community, mostly for getting the Old Spice guy to do a video about how great libraries are, and unsuccessfully campaigning to get Ben & Jerry’s to create a flavor called the “Gooey Decimal System.” (If you don’t get the pun, just ask someone ten years older.)
Oh, and now he’s using Change.org to help lead the charge in a fight against NewsCorp, one of the world’s most powerful companies.
See, more and more libraries are beginning to buy e-books, like those read on a Kindle or similar device. They’re programmed to be like normal books — lent out to one reader at a time, returned, and downloaded by another reader. It’s simple, and especially great for working parents or the disabled who have a hard time making it to a library.
But publishing giant HarperCollins (owned by NewsCorp) is trying to force libraries to only buy e-books that literally self-destruct after the 26th reader in an attempt to maximize profits.
Having to repeatedly buy the same book will be a financial and logistical disaster for libraries, one that could force a few to close their doors.
Even worse, there are signs that other publishing companies may soon follow the lead of HarperCollins, which could devastate libraries all around the world.
Some amazing librarians have launched a full boycott of HarperCollins until the decision is reversed, but they urgently need widespread support to force NewsCorp to back down.
Andy declares on his blog that “The world needs more badass librarians.” It’s true, though right now the world also needs more readers who will stand alongside them.
Next Wimpy Kid Set for Some Time in November
“Jeff Kinney’s sixth installment of the bestselling Wimpy Kid series from Amulet Books will go on sale this November. There is no additional information being released yet on laydown, cover or title, except that it will have a “winter theme” and “features the Heffley family being snowed in.” Abrams says that Kinney’s books have more than 50 million copies in print in the US and Canada.”
“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”
— Nick Hornby, writer
April 17th, 2011 · Comments Off on QOTD: Pasternak · Quote of the Day
“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is easy to miss it.” — Boris Pasternak
April 15th, 2011 · Comments Off on QOTD: Watts · Quote of the Day
“No one imagines that symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.” — Alan Watts, philosopher, writer, and speaker (1915-1973)
“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.” — William Butler Yeats
