Libraries and Librarianship

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The Death of the Hardback

July 20, 2010 in Books, Libraries and Librarianship, Public Radio by librarylea | No comments

This morning on NPR, Wendy Kaufman reported that Amazon.com now sells more e-books than hardbacks. While this is an interesting statistic, I don’t think it’s quite the portent of doom that the story made it out to be.  I noticed that Ms. Kaufman kept making the distinction that e-books were outselling hardbacks, not the total number of print books or even paperbacks.  A few minutes into the story, and after an interview with an iSchool professor from U of Washington (woo librarians!) Ms. Kaufman said that paperbacks are still the best selling book format on Amazon.com.  The company won’t release numbers of book sales or of Kindle units.  However, paperbacks are #1, e-books #2, hardbacks #3.  So p>e, e>h, and p+h>a lot more than e.  Isn’t fake math fun? 😉

This seems to be more about the death of the hardback than the death of the print book.  I think the real point here is one that can be easily inferred, but I think it should have been a part of the article.  If books don’t come out in hardback – will they ever come out in paperback?  To me, hardbacks are for people that need the book NOW.  My Harry Potter books are hardbacks – and pre-orders, because I NEEDED them the day they came out.  So, if a lot of die hards move to Kindle then they will get their insta-books digitally – so no more hardbacks (except for collectors and lovable luddites – or purists depending on your point of view).  Anyway – if books don’t come out in hardback will they come out in paperback?  Will titles that would traditionally be hardback be released in paperback right away?  Are we just losing that format or are we losing all print?

I actually don’t have a big emotional stake in the argument.  I love audiobooks (which I get digitally and instantly), I like print, and I like paperbacks, but I’m considering getting a kindle because books are heavy, there are some titles I’d rather read than listen to, and audiobooks can be very pricey.  As someone who works in libraries it might seem that I should take a stance, but we’ll adapt.  Whatever format information takes, I will be here to organize and provide access to it.

Kaufman, W. (2010) At Amazon, e-book sales outpace hardbacks. NPR Morning Edition, 20 July 2010.  Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128635547

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Tweet tweet who got the keys to the jeep?

June 21, 2010 in Libraries and Librarianship, Music by librarylea | No comments

I cannot think about Twitter for any length of time without thinking of Missy Elliott.  I’m not sure when my head decided that Twitter was “tweet tweet,” but once it did it was all downhill from there (or, uphill, if you, like me, don’t really mind having The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) in your head for hours at a time – next time it rains I’ll have to share my rainy day playlist, very literal – John Aeilli* and I were totes separated at birth – how’s that for a digression?).

I have enjoyed being an active tweeter for the past two weeks.  Now that I have my new fancy, awesome-pants phone I can tweet from anywhere!  I’m still not a tweeting maniac and have been trying the Conan model of one tweet per day, but now that ALA is upon us and the vendors and exhibitors are creatively using their Twitter accounts I have been tweeting more often.

HTC Incredible

I've had this for two weeks and already forget that I can use a computer to check my email.

So, I am going to do my best to tweet it up at the conference.  Oh, and if you’re in a session that I’m tweeting about, and you see a brown-haired girl with purple mildly cats eyed glasses and a gold pashmina jump up and yell BINGO! that’s me.  Although that description minus the “bingo” yelling fits about 11% of the total conference population.  🙂

ALA10 "I'm attending" badge

LL is just saying NO to sensible shoes.

* For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure, John Aielli is a DJ on KUT the public radio station out of UT-Austin.  He likes themes.  No, he really likes themes.  Anyone can play songs about love on Valentine’s Day, or spoooooky songs on Halloween, but John Aielli will find you three hours of music about trees for Arbor Day – AND between those songs (and sometimes over top of them) he will share with you fun facts about trees, the holiday itself, and possibly even the etymology of the word “arbor”.  Don’t fret if you aren’t local – you can listen over the Internet of course and there are KUT apps for iPhone and Android.

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