Sunday, October 16, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Libraries
I just found out through Wayne Bivens-Tatum that Occupy Wall Street (and many of the other cities) have started their own libraries. You can learn how to contribute here.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Personal libraries as the backbone of a sustainable book culture
The other day Joshua Kim complained about the price of a university press book on his IHE blog, and today he has offered some thoughts on how to lower prices. This is the typical underwhelming stuff of IHE blog conversations about books and libraries, and I only mention it because of a much more worthwhile response to his first post by Tony Sanfilippo about what exactly factors into the pricing of scholarly books. Sanfilippo currently works at Penn State Press, and is an indie scholarly bookstore veteran. So he has fought—and is fighting—the good fight.
Tony writes [in part]:
I'm all about the sort of efficiency and free exchange of critical discourse that is touted by open access and mass digitizing ventures, but this is precisely why personal book collections... with all of their idiosyncrasies, limitations, and inefficiencies... need to continue to play an important role in book culture. Institutional libraries should be supported and expanded, but we cannot expect them to bear the burden of the entire book industry as its primary consumer base. Nor should we expect them to have the books we need when our lack of personal investment in the book culture is what drives prices up.
Tony writes [in part]:
I've been selling books for over twenty years, first in retail with my own academically oriented bookstore and now for a university press publisher, and if I had to point to one thing that I think is causing this I'd point back to readers. We all still read, as much if not more than we ever have, but how much do we value book ownership? How many young scholars are building personal libraries? We're in a vicious cycle where the erosion of the perceived value of a personal library means a smaller printrun sellthrough, which is noted and reflected in the price of the next book that a publisher publishes. We have tried cutting prices in half, but it has never doubled sales. IMHO, these prices are a direct reflection of a cultural shift where people are happy to outsource their personal library to Google Books, their institutional library, or to legal or illegal digital copies. They are also content to take only what they need, so where chapter four used to subsidize the creation of the entire book, these days scholars are content with just using chapter four in their custom published textbook, or on Blackboard®. No one is being required to buy the whole book.
I'm all about the sort of efficiency and free exchange of critical discourse that is touted by open access and mass digitizing ventures, but this is precisely why personal book collections... with all of their idiosyncrasies, limitations, and inefficiencies... need to continue to play an important role in book culture. Institutional libraries should be supported and expanded, but we cannot expect them to bear the burden of the entire book industry as its primary consumer base. Nor should we expect them to have the books we need when our lack of personal investment in the book culture is what drives prices up.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The physical book, hoarded without undue sentiment
Alan Jacobs links a piece in the NYT by James Gleick arguing that books have been made into fetish objects by people who continue to bestow special value on them apart from digital representations that do the job of presenting texts to us just fine. Jacobs agrees with Gleick against the Folger's Michael Witmore, who tries to argue that physical books are necessary for physical aspects of the interpretive task.
Like Jacobs and Gleick, I agree that this sort of defense of the book really boils down to sentimentality. To say that a physical book opens up a new world of interpretation is only slightly more palatable (at least it has the veneer of avoiding pointlessness) than the overly aesthetic appeal to books as precious items in themselves. While I happen to agree about the appeal of books and value them highly myself merely for their physicality, I don't pretend that this attraction is overly important. In the end, beyond my subjective attachments, Jacobs and Gleick are of course right. Books are functional, and they aren't special simply because they come in a particular form that strikes me as special.
That said, physical books should be protected tooth and nail, and do not become obsolete simply because there is a high quality digital representation available. Why? Not because you can get anything more out of a physical book than a digitized version, but because it is the basic bibliographic artifact, and so long as it remains useful as a text (rather than simply deteriorated paper that hangs around as a relic), it should be kept and curated as one of the original versions. I am in full support of antiquarians who take inordinate amounts of time tending to their collections, or research libraries that devote miles of stacks to fragile volumes, each of which might only be pulled out for examination once every few decades.
But why? Not because these books are special, but because they're the books. A digitization of a microfilm of a book isn't going to be as helpful as a digitization of the book. Likewise future digitizations with more sophisticated resolutions will refer to the book. A digital repository can say: the text is here, but a librarian can say: Here is the book. Consider it a sort of insurance for future copying. Or maybe a claim to the priority version. Or maybe just the book itself. For those concerned with texts, isn't that reason enough to keep physical books? To hoard them, even?
Sometimes I think the irrational excitation of hoarding naturally leads "book lovers" to post hoc aesthetic analyses of why books are important. While understandable, this explanation of one's devotion to the physical book is somewhat wrongheaded. Collecting physical books and keeping them safe for use even amidst their digital representations warrants an irrational sort of devotional hoarding because the enemy is, in fact, at the gates. We lose texts every day because we lose the physical books in which they find print. So we circle around the books and declare our undying devotion to them, even though the reasons we give for maintaining such devotion are sometimes baseless and do unjustifiably make books into fetish objects.
Like Jacobs and Gleick, I agree that this sort of defense of the book really boils down to sentimentality. To say that a physical book opens up a new world of interpretation is only slightly more palatable (at least it has the veneer of avoiding pointlessness) than the overly aesthetic appeal to books as precious items in themselves. While I happen to agree about the appeal of books and value them highly myself merely for their physicality, I don't pretend that this attraction is overly important. In the end, beyond my subjective attachments, Jacobs and Gleick are of course right. Books are functional, and they aren't special simply because they come in a particular form that strikes me as special.
That said, physical books should be protected tooth and nail, and do not become obsolete simply because there is a high quality digital representation available. Why? Not because you can get anything more out of a physical book than a digitized version, but because it is the basic bibliographic artifact, and so long as it remains useful as a text (rather than simply deteriorated paper that hangs around as a relic), it should be kept and curated as one of the original versions. I am in full support of antiquarians who take inordinate amounts of time tending to their collections, or research libraries that devote miles of stacks to fragile volumes, each of which might only be pulled out for examination once every few decades.
But why? Not because these books are special, but because they're the books. A digitization of a microfilm of a book isn't going to be as helpful as a digitization of the book. Likewise future digitizations with more sophisticated resolutions will refer to the book. A digital repository can say: the text is here, but a librarian can say: Here is the book. Consider it a sort of insurance for future copying. Or maybe a claim to the priority version. Or maybe just the book itself. For those concerned with texts, isn't that reason enough to keep physical books? To hoard them, even?
Sometimes I think the irrational excitation of hoarding naturally leads "book lovers" to post hoc aesthetic analyses of why books are important. While understandable, this explanation of one's devotion to the physical book is somewhat wrongheaded. Collecting physical books and keeping them safe for use even amidst their digital representations warrants an irrational sort of devotional hoarding because the enemy is, in fact, at the gates. We lose texts every day because we lose the physical books in which they find print. So we circle around the books and declare our undying devotion to them, even though the reasons we give for maintaining such devotion are sometimes baseless and do unjustifiably make books into fetish objects.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
visits - Ravenswood Used Books & Europa Books
Last week I was finally able to take a look at two bookstores on the north and near north side of the city that I've had on my to-do list for a while.
Ravenswood Used Books is a fun, quirky place. Its narrow aisles wind around with piles of books crammed everywhere, something like a smaller, disheveled version of the Seminary Co-op. They seemed to have a pretty broad selection of titles; finding anything in particular is hit-or-miss, but every subject section I looked at had a few gems, and there was plenty of good. A lot of cheap paperbacks were available in the foreign literature section-- the sort you'd find at a library used books sale. The place had character, the staffperson was amiable, and it will be worth a revisit when I'm in the neighborhood again. An important note before you visit- they only take cash or checks. I didn't realize this until I was about to leave, and had to put back some Kafka that I was going to buy. The picture below, taken from their blog, gives a decent sense of the place...
Europa Books is a rare breed in the U.S. - a foreign language bookshop. It's actually the Chicago location for Schoenhof's Foreign Books, founded in Harvard Square in 1856. The contrast with Ravenswood is significant; Europa is tidy and more minimalist. The lower floor houses most of the literature with an emphasis on French and Spanish language books. There is also a good deal of Italian, more even than their German selection (which is what I was looking for). There is travel literature, a large foreign magazine section upstairs, and a childrens' section as well. For those who are not near Schoenhof's or Europa or can't find what they need there, you can also look at Adler's Foreign Books. Below is a crappy picture of their German book section that I took while I was there.
Ravenswood Used Books is a fun, quirky place. Its narrow aisles wind around with piles of books crammed everywhere, something like a smaller, disheveled version of the Seminary Co-op. They seemed to have a pretty broad selection of titles; finding anything in particular is hit-or-miss, but every subject section I looked at had a few gems, and there was plenty of good. A lot of cheap paperbacks were available in the foreign literature section-- the sort you'd find at a library used books sale. The place had character, the staffperson was amiable, and it will be worth a revisit when I'm in the neighborhood again. An important note before you visit- they only take cash or checks. I didn't realize this until I was about to leave, and had to put back some Kafka that I was going to buy. The picture below, taken from their blog, gives a decent sense of the place...
Europa Books is a rare breed in the U.S. - a foreign language bookshop. It's actually the Chicago location for Schoenhof's Foreign Books, founded in Harvard Square in 1856. The contrast with Ravenswood is significant; Europa is tidy and more minimalist. The lower floor houses most of the literature with an emphasis on French and Spanish language books. There is also a good deal of Italian, more even than their German selection (which is what I was looking for). There is travel literature, a large foreign magazine section upstairs, and a childrens' section as well. For those who are not near Schoenhof's or Europa or can't find what they need there, you can also look at Adler's Foreign Books. Below is a crappy picture of their German book section that I took while I was there.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Bookseller start-ups
In the carcass of a Border's store that couldn't cut it, an inventive venture named Fleeting Pages will offer books from indie presses and self-publication, workshops, and other events... for a month or so. The future of the idea is sketchy. It sounds like they may pop up in another place down the road. Presumably they could also stay at their initial location for longer if doing so seemed to be the right thing. We'll have to wait until May 7th to find out a good deal of how it will look, but there are indications that this project is getting a lot of attention and support in its early stages.
In Minneapolis, Eric Brew is also working on a project... a multi-use space selling books and artwork on consignment, hosting theatrical performances and rented space for writers to work, selling coffee, etc. The spot will be called Brew's Coffee & Books Community Space and is currently raising funds to get started. Brew will need $32,000 in pledges for the project to start (right now $2,115 has been pledged), and the deadline he's set for it is May 4th.
Both of these projects stretch the concept of the bookseller to include a mandate of contributing to the cultural engine. What is going on is not simply the presentation of books for consumption, but also a preferential option for the small publishers or for local work, and also for continued production of literature or other arts. Both are pointing social networking tools toward useful rather than gimmicky ends. I'm not sure what will come of either venture, but the energy behind them seems important in itself. People want to set up something like this, and it's encouraging to see some people go out on a limb and do it.
If you are in the Twin Cities or Pittsburgh areas, do think about supporting both these booksellers. Readers should pursue pledges for Eric Brew especially, who is up against a deadline and looking for a good deal of assistance yet in start-up funding.
Both of these projects stretch the concept of the bookseller to include a mandate of contributing to the cultural engine. What is going on is not simply the presentation of books for consumption, but also a preferential option for the small publishers or for local work, and also for continued production of literature or other arts. Both are pointing social networking tools toward useful rather than gimmicky ends. I'm not sure what will come of either venture, but the energy behind them seems important in itself. People want to set up something like this, and it's encouraging to see some people go out on a limb and do it.
If you are in the Twin Cities or Pittsburgh areas, do think about supporting both these booksellers. Readers should pursue pledges for Eric Brew especially, who is up against a deadline and looking for a good deal of assistance yet in start-up funding.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Greetings.
This blog has been incubating for a little while; I've slowly added to it and played around with it over the last few months without broadcasting its presence at all. As you can see, it presently comprises a link list of publishers, bookstores, and other book-culture related blogs. I'm not sure where this is going exactly, but I'd like to briefly share where this idea came from and a few ideas for where it might end up.
I find paeans and apologias to The Book pretty tiring. When we have to spend time making things like civic engagement, or literacy, or family values look attractive to people then we've probably already lost a sizable portion of whatever battle we had it in our heads to wage. If I have to convince someone that books are a fundamental vehicle for human expression, communication, and edification, then forget it. That's not what this blog is about. I have no interest in holding anyone's hand who is just going to embarrass the rest of us by frolicking awkwardly in their own ignorance.
This blog has in mind those who are interested in pursuing various ends within a healthy book culture. I don't have many answers here and I am not an expert on any of this; the surrounding pages are a result of some of my work at a library, my continued work as an academic, and my bibliographic curiosity. Many other sites out there are better equipped to help you with books, and I try to do a service of linking to them when I run across them. Others are much better-read than I am, and I think that will come across as pretty obvious when this blog ventures out of my own study interests and into "literature", which is really the bulk and center of book culture. So I'm not making any claims to this site being a normative perspective on the book world or anything, but rather representative of my own idiosyncratic uses of books. My intention is simply to draw attention to possible futures for book culture that are more sustainable, and to draw more people into a conversation that is often dismissed as nostalgic, impractical, elitist, or irrelevant.
And the time does seem to be ripe for such renewed attention. The woes of independent booksellers have been voiced for a long time, but it's currently a bit more culturally celebrated to embrace the local, the independent, and the grass-rooted. The risk of becoming a Portlandia cliche doesn't diminish the utility of the space that's presently open for a sentimental shift away from big-box stores and other structures that can cause problems for book culture. Meanwhile, Amazon.com is facing increased pressure from U.S. states to pay sales taxes and Borders is a complete mess. There's no need to trumpet a revolution, but now seems as good a time as any to revisit how we want our community of letters to look.
This is my contribution to that effort. The links to various resources will certainly continue to be an important aspect of the site, and other features may debut over time. I'd like to bring in some reflections on material aspects of books & stacks without getting overly aesthetic. I'll also mention news and may post some bibliographies as well. Basically, I want to be a help in navigating folks through cultural structures related to the written word (for the most part: publishers, booksellers, libraries, reading rooms), and will mostly focus on the United States, with a bit of investigation elsewhere for comparative purposes (what does translation look like in places that are actually translating at a substantial rate? What do kulturhauses look like? etc.) I'm open to suggestions from people, too. Email me.
I find paeans and apologias to The Book pretty tiring. When we have to spend time making things like civic engagement, or literacy, or family values look attractive to people then we've probably already lost a sizable portion of whatever battle we had it in our heads to wage. If I have to convince someone that books are a fundamental vehicle for human expression, communication, and edification, then forget it. That's not what this blog is about. I have no interest in holding anyone's hand who is just going to embarrass the rest of us by frolicking awkwardly in their own ignorance.
This blog has in mind those who are interested in pursuing various ends within a healthy book culture. I don't have many answers here and I am not an expert on any of this; the surrounding pages are a result of some of my work at a library, my continued work as an academic, and my bibliographic curiosity. Many other sites out there are better equipped to help you with books, and I try to do a service of linking to them when I run across them. Others are much better-read than I am, and I think that will come across as pretty obvious when this blog ventures out of my own study interests and into "literature", which is really the bulk and center of book culture. So I'm not making any claims to this site being a normative perspective on the book world or anything, but rather representative of my own idiosyncratic uses of books. My intention is simply to draw attention to possible futures for book culture that are more sustainable, and to draw more people into a conversation that is often dismissed as nostalgic, impractical, elitist, or irrelevant.
And the time does seem to be ripe for such renewed attention. The woes of independent booksellers have been voiced for a long time, but it's currently a bit more culturally celebrated to embrace the local, the independent, and the grass-rooted. The risk of becoming a Portlandia cliche doesn't diminish the utility of the space that's presently open for a sentimental shift away from big-box stores and other structures that can cause problems for book culture. Meanwhile, Amazon.com is facing increased pressure from U.S. states to pay sales taxes and Borders is a complete mess. There's no need to trumpet a revolution, but now seems as good a time as any to revisit how we want our community of letters to look.
This is my contribution to that effort. The links to various resources will certainly continue to be an important aspect of the site, and other features may debut over time. I'd like to bring in some reflections on material aspects of books & stacks without getting overly aesthetic. I'll also mention news and may post some bibliographies as well. Basically, I want to be a help in navigating folks through cultural structures related to the written word (for the most part: publishers, booksellers, libraries, reading rooms), and will mostly focus on the United States, with a bit of investigation elsewhere for comparative purposes (what does translation look like in places that are actually translating at a substantial rate? What do kulturhauses look like? etc.) I'm open to suggestions from people, too. Email me.
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