Notable Bookish/Techy News, Links and Tweets: (you know – a roundup)

Such a week. The prevailing theme this week was low, low prices! Yes, in a flurry of well-placed PR, Amazon took the e-reader pricing wars to new lows. Read all about it here.

Also newsy, but receiving considerably less fanfare (or, at least far fewer national talk show appearances), SkyRiver filed an anti-trust suit against Online Computer Library Center.

Some of my favorite blog posts this week:

Delusions, Illusions, and the True Costs of Digital Publishing by Kent Anderson at the Scholarly Kitchen:

Why I recommend it: It’s about time we started acknowledging that digital does not equal cheap and/or easy, and in this post, Kent Anderson does a very nice job of explaining why.

Just this year, Clay Shirky invoked the “marginal cost” argument in his most recent book, “Cognitive Surplus,” stating that, “Information can now be made globally available, in an unlimited number of perfect copies, at zero marginal cost.”

However, for those of us inside the belly of the beast, just the opposite seems to be happening. That is, digital publishing seems to be getting more expensive while we wring costs out of print as we draw it down.

Vending Machine Library Hits the Spot by Joanne Chianello, The Ottawa Citizen

Leave it to the Canadians (why are they so darned cool?) to come up with something charmingly hip, yet undeniably good for the world — library vending machines!

These library kiosks — there are two of them in the foyer of the Hunt Club-Riverside Community Centre — are the first of their kind in Canada. They work just like regular vending machines, except that users swipe their Ottawa library cards instead of inserting coins into the machine. And instead of buying a pack of gum, the user is borrowing a library book or DVD. The printed receipt tells the library customer when the item is due back.

At last count, almost 1,700 items have been checked out since the program began in April. One machine stocks children’s materials, while the other offers items for teens and adults in both English and French. The selections are chosen by library staff from the most popular, in-demand titles. Between the two kiosks is a return bin, where residents can bring back not just items that they borrowed from the kiosks, but from any library in the city.

It’s been such a hit, says Councillor Maria McRae, that she once saw a little boy hugging the machine.

Kickstartup: Successful fundraising with Kickstarter.com
& (re)making Art Space Tokyo
by Craig Mod.

Herein, Craig provides a very thorough reporting of how he used Kickstarter.com to fund the reprinting (and digitization) of his OP book Art Space Tokyo. Read it and learn!

The Technology of Reading: A Long View (pts i and ii) by Sheila Bounford, Off The Page.

Sheila has been doing some history reading, and connecting a lot of dots between publishing of the very distant past, and publishing in the here and now.
 

The technologies of reading and publishing have entwined and evolved since writing was first invented – often in response to the available resources and the cultural pressures in play as societies have changed. So over the next few days I’m planning a sequence of short posts on some of “eureka” moments I’ve experienced while reading the book.

Also of Note:

Jeff Bezos, Charlie Rose & a $139 Kindle: eBookNewser Live Blog by Jason Boog, eBookNewser

My favorite part of the Amazon news this week – it unseated Andrew Wylie as most over-discussed topic in publishing of late. Well, leave it to Jason Boog of eBookNewser to turn the tables on us with his live-blogging/tweeting of the Jeff Bezos/Charlie Rose interview.

Yes, Jason (who is surely the hardest-working man in publishing blogalism), faithfully live-tweeted the interview, dutifully reporting throughout the absence of Wylie mentions:

11:42 STILL NO MENTION OF WYLIE/AMAZON DEAL!!!!

11:44 Publishing journalist Sarah Weinman is still awake. “Favorite part of @ebooknewser liveblogging Bezos on Charlie Rose: 11:42 STILL NO MENTION OF WYLIE/AMAZON DEAL!!!!”
 
11:42 STILL NO MENTION OF WYLIE/AMAZON DEAL!!!!”

11:55: Show wraps. No mention of Wylie deals and very little attention focused on eBook pricing.

Doh!

And in wrapping, I offer you one Liza Daly (@Liza) with a few words of wisdom regarding Amazon and their real ace in the hole:

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