History of the Book 

Research Centre in the History of the Book

Aspects of the Victorian Book

This introduction to the Victorian book, prepared to mark the centenary of Queen Victoria's death in 1901, draws on the British Library's extensive nineteenth-century collections. [read and see more]

Guide to Bookbindings in the British Library

Digital Copyright 

Electronic Mailing List: digital-copyright

DIGITAL-COPYRIGHT is a discussion group that provides a forum for the analysis of topics such as copyright law and policy, technologies, and federal information law and policies that impact higher education, particularly digital distance education. In addition to ongoing discussions of critical and theoretical issues, the list will contain: Ý

• postings on upcoming conferences
• calls for papers
• legislative news announcements
• and many other matters which should be of interest

This listserv aims to be a space for educators, policy makers, librarians, lawyers, and all who have a vested interest in digital copyright and other intellectual property matters of importance to the higher education community. The list encourages all levels of discourse, as well as relevant political, historical, cultural, and philosophical approaches to the problem of applying copyright to the digital arena.

What is he thinking? 

Reading the library its last rites? by Autumn Koepp

If Gov. Gary Locke succeeds in closing the Washington State Library to help balance the budget, he'll face a host of questions, not the least of which will be: Who'll take over the library's services, and what will happen to its 3 1é2 million books and other archival materials?

"It's like Humpty Dumpty," argues state librarian Nancy Zussy. "If the state library is eliminated or broken up, you cannot reassemble it again. It is unrealistic."

The library, with $9 million a year in state money, has become one of the focal points in Locke's efforts to close a shortfall in the biennial budget of more than $1.2 billion.

Laboring under a recession and initiatives that have raised spending and cut taxes, the governor has proposed more than $500 million in spending cuts and an assortment of new revenue, including tax increases, a new lottery game and spending from state reserves.

The library, until recently a low-profile institution, has come out fighting for its very existence. [read more]

Issues in the Digital Age 

A review of Lawrence Lessig's the Future of Ideas, The excess of control by Felix Stalder

In The Future of Ideas Lawrence Lessig, a professor at the Stanford Law School, conveys a bleak message: We are destroying the conditions of freedom and creativity on the Internet. Right at the moment when the Internet has begun to show its full potential for increasing growth and innovation globally, a counterrevolution is threatening, if not already succeeding, to undermine this potential. [read more]

E-Books 

Consortium of 12 Universities Begins Project to Deliver Academic E-Books by Jeffrey R. Young

Academic libraries and university presses at Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago have teamed up in an e-publishing venture that aims to put hundreds of scholarly books in electronic form.

Last month, leaders of the 12 universities committed from $50,000 to $100,000 to develop a prototype for the joint e-publishing venture, says Tom Peters, director of the consortium's center for library initiatives. The institutions have worked together for decades as part of a group called the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. [read more]

A New Museum for Books 

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Where do you buy your books? 

Amazon.com Posts First-Ever Profit by Allison Linn

Amazon.com, the pioneering Internet retailer that has symbolized for many the potential and the pitfalls of dot-com commerce, posted its first net profit ever in the fourth quarter, beating its own forecasts and Wall Street's expectations.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the world's largest Internet retailer said it earned $5 million, or 1 cent a share, compared with a net loss of $545 million, or $1.53 per share, in the year-ago period.

The results were helped by lowered prices and companywide penny-pinching. [read more]

In New York, A Bookstore's Last Chapter by Lynne Duke

A "lost our lease" sign screams from the display windows wrapped around the northwest corner of busy West 57th Street and Broadway, anchored for nearly three decades by Coliseum Books. It was a special place, a New York niche, all about the mind and its passions, not just the mass-market book boom of the moment. You'd find no cappuccino machines inside Coliseum, no comfy couches. It was a bookstore both populist and purist. If it was in print, no matter how obscure or rarefied, you could find it on these shelves. Now, that's all over.

Next week the doors will close for good. George Leibson, 57, the owner, and the man who feels this is partly his fault, might try to go beyond Sunday, a couple more days of his book-selling life. In lieu of wife and children, Coliseum was his family. He is sad -- and embarrassed -- that it has come to this. [read more]

Suggestion: If you need or want to purchase a book, try a locally owned, independent bookstore in your town or neighborhood first.

For-profit library struggling 

Questia Media down to 28 workers by Tom Fowler

Another round of layoffs at online library and academic research firm Questia Media has reduced the company to a skeleton crew of about 28 workers, just enough to maintain its Web site.

About 40 workers were laid off last week without severance pay, sources say, when it became clear plans for another round of investment cash wouldn't materialize. The company previously raised more than $135 million and at one time employed over 300 workers, but has had several rounds of layoffs beginning last spring.

Questia is said to be looking for ways to cut expenses further, including moving into smaller offices than the high-rent space it occupies in Greenway Plaza, and ways to get out of long-term contracts and partnerships. Company officials did not return phone calls or e-mail requests for comment. [read more]