Notes: Paradies Flies; Google the Renter?; Nonprofits
The Paradies Shops, which runs more than 400 stores at airports and
hotels under its own name and licenses, is taking a trip to new
territory, the Atlanta Business Chronicle
and MSNBC report. For the first time in its 45-year history, the
company is opening stores outside its traditional areas, in this case,
at the Georgia Aquarium, where it will have two gift shops.
Last month Paradies opened the first New York Times bookstore, in Lexington, Ky.'s Blue Grass Airport.
---
Salinas, Calif., which got lots of bad press for deciding to close its three public libraries, passed a new tax last Tuesday that will keep library doors open, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The half-cent sales tax increase was approved by 61% of voters in the city of 150,000.
During the past year, Rally Salinas raised almost $800,000 for the libraries and related programs. The effort was aided by community groups, local businesses, celebrities--and even inmates at San Quentin, who raised $1,000 selling doughnuts, pizza and fried chicken to fellow prisoners.
---
The digital race continues. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Google has approached at least one publisher about a possible program to allow consumers to "rent" an online copy of new books for a week. The copies would not be downloadable or printable. The concept follows announcements in recent weeks about pay-per-view programs by Amazon and Random House.
Under the Google proposal, customers would pay 10% of the book's list price, a rate publishers who spoke with the paper said was too low.
---
The Economist offers one of the more cogent explanations for the rush by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to digitize books. "Most of the web has already been scanned and indexed--there are already between 8 billion and 10 billion items online. Although search technology is constantly tweaked to provide better performance and more relevant results, studies by Microsoft have shown that around half of all search queries fail to provide the information that users want. 'We need to get offline content online. Offline is where trusted content is, and where people who need to answer questions go,' explains Danielle Tiedt, manager of search content acquisition at MSN. 'Books are only the first step,' she says."
The article also points out that while many people quote Stewart Brand to the effect that "information wants to be free," they forget the rest of his famous 1987 aphorism: "Information also wants to be expensive."
---
Bizarre bookstore news section:
Yesterday afternoon Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, N.C., was robbed by a gunman during a cookbook signing, the News & Observer stated. The thief was discreet enough--handing a cashier a note--that customers had no idea the theft had occurred.
Noting that the store has had two burglaries in recent years, owner Nancy Olson joked, "Why didn't he go to a Barnes & Noble and rob them?"
Actually B&N didn't have an easy Sunday either. In Anchorage, Alaska, yesterday afternoon, a Subaru station wagon smashed through the windows of a B&N and made it about 40 feet into the store, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Luckily no one was hurt seriously. Appropriately perhaps, the car destroyed the travel section and ended up in--or as--history, as it were.
---
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offers a long profile of Woodland Pattern Book Center in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wis., on its 25th anniversary. The store stocks 27,000 books with an emphasis on poetry and small press titles, curates art shows, hosts jazz performances, holds poetry slams, offers readings, teaches bookmaking and more. Director Anne Kingsbury told the paper, "What makes us a little different from other literary centers is that we've presented different art forms where it intersects with text or literature."
Woodland Pattern has survived in part because Kingsbury's husband, Karl Gartung, kept his day job--for salary and benefits--the pair own the building the store is in and the business is organized as a non-profit entity.
---
Speaking of bookstore nonprofits, the group seeking to organize a bookstore co-op in New Paltz, N.Y., to replace Ariel Booksellers, which is closing this month, met and discussed plans. According to the Daily Freeman, the steering committee hopes to offer literacy, education and arts programs; educate readers on the value of buying locally; raise $200,000; and sell memberships of $100 for single readers and $200 for families.
---
Today's New York Times profiles one of the estimated 25 buyers of the (nearly) complete Penguin Classics collection of 1,082 books that Amazon has been offering since June for nearly $8,000. The owner is Kathryn Gursky of Los Alamos, N.M., who has an MLS and works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her home was burned to the ground by a forest fire in 2000; her husband bought the collection as a birthday present to help replace her 2,300 lost books.
---
Another New York Times piece today explores the push by some publishers to develop books closely with other companies. In this case, HarperCollins created a $16.99 children's title, Cashmere If You Can, with the cooperation of Saks Fifth Avenue (the store had the idea for the book). Until January, the book is a Saks exclusive and will not be available elsewhere.
In the book, whose text copyright is held by Saks, a family of Mongolian goats live on the roof of Saks's midtown New York City store. The Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon in the Saks building is another placed product, so to speak.
Bookseller comment ranged from "disgusting" (Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C.) to "It all depends on how good the book is" (Mitch Kaplan at Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla.).
---
Longtime management consultant and business guru Peter Drucker died on Friday at 95. He wrote 39 books in his career. For a good start, try The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins, $17.95, 006093574X), which was originally published in 2001.
---
David Westheimer, a longtime journalist and novelist, died last Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Houston Chronicle reported. He was 88.
Westheimer was best known for Von Ryan's Express, the bestseller that became a popular 1965 movie starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard. Like many of his other works of fiction, Von Ryan's Express was based on Westheimer's experience as a POW during World War II.
Last month Paradies opened the first New York Times bookstore, in Lexington, Ky.'s Blue Grass Airport.
---
Salinas, Calif., which got lots of bad press for deciding to close its three public libraries, passed a new tax last Tuesday that will keep library doors open, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The half-cent sales tax increase was approved by 61% of voters in the city of 150,000.
During the past year, Rally Salinas raised almost $800,000 for the libraries and related programs. The effort was aided by community groups, local businesses, celebrities--and even inmates at San Quentin, who raised $1,000 selling doughnuts, pizza and fried chicken to fellow prisoners.
---
The digital race continues. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Google has approached at least one publisher about a possible program to allow consumers to "rent" an online copy of new books for a week. The copies would not be downloadable or printable. The concept follows announcements in recent weeks about pay-per-view programs by Amazon and Random House.
Under the Google proposal, customers would pay 10% of the book's list price, a rate publishers who spoke with the paper said was too low.
---
The Economist offers one of the more cogent explanations for the rush by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to digitize books. "Most of the web has already been scanned and indexed--there are already between 8 billion and 10 billion items online. Although search technology is constantly tweaked to provide better performance and more relevant results, studies by Microsoft have shown that around half of all search queries fail to provide the information that users want. 'We need to get offline content online. Offline is where trusted content is, and where people who need to answer questions go,' explains Danielle Tiedt, manager of search content acquisition at MSN. 'Books are only the first step,' she says."
The article also points out that while many people quote Stewart Brand to the effect that "information wants to be free," they forget the rest of his famous 1987 aphorism: "Information also wants to be expensive."
---
Bizarre bookstore news section:
Yesterday afternoon Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, N.C., was robbed by a gunman during a cookbook signing, the News & Observer stated. The thief was discreet enough--handing a cashier a note--that customers had no idea the theft had occurred.
Noting that the store has had two burglaries in recent years, owner Nancy Olson joked, "Why didn't he go to a Barnes & Noble and rob them?"
Actually B&N didn't have an easy Sunday either. In Anchorage, Alaska, yesterday afternoon, a Subaru station wagon smashed through the windows of a B&N and made it about 40 feet into the store, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Luckily no one was hurt seriously. Appropriately perhaps, the car destroyed the travel section and ended up in--or as--history, as it were.
---
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offers a long profile of Woodland Pattern Book Center in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wis., on its 25th anniversary. The store stocks 27,000 books with an emphasis on poetry and small press titles, curates art shows, hosts jazz performances, holds poetry slams, offers readings, teaches bookmaking and more. Director Anne Kingsbury told the paper, "What makes us a little different from other literary centers is that we've presented different art forms where it intersects with text or literature."
Woodland Pattern has survived in part because Kingsbury's husband, Karl Gartung, kept his day job--for salary and benefits--the pair own the building the store is in and the business is organized as a non-profit entity.
---
Speaking of bookstore nonprofits, the group seeking to organize a bookstore co-op in New Paltz, N.Y., to replace Ariel Booksellers, which is closing this month, met and discussed plans. According to the Daily Freeman, the steering committee hopes to offer literacy, education and arts programs; educate readers on the value of buying locally; raise $200,000; and sell memberships of $100 for single readers and $200 for families.
---
Today's New York Times profiles one of the estimated 25 buyers of the (nearly) complete Penguin Classics collection of 1,082 books that Amazon has been offering since June for nearly $8,000. The owner is Kathryn Gursky of Los Alamos, N.M., who has an MLS and works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her home was burned to the ground by a forest fire in 2000; her husband bought the collection as a birthday present to help replace her 2,300 lost books.
---
Another New York Times piece today explores the push by some publishers to develop books closely with other companies. In this case, HarperCollins created a $16.99 children's title, Cashmere If You Can, with the cooperation of Saks Fifth Avenue (the store had the idea for the book). Until January, the book is a Saks exclusive and will not be available elsewhere.
In the book, whose text copyright is held by Saks, a family of Mongolian goats live on the roof of Saks's midtown New York City store. The Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon in the Saks building is another placed product, so to speak.
Bookseller comment ranged from "disgusting" (Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C.) to "It all depends on how good the book is" (Mitch Kaplan at Books & Books, Coral Gables, Fla.).
---
Longtime management consultant and business guru Peter Drucker died on Friday at 95. He wrote 39 books in his career. For a good start, try The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins, $17.95, 006093574X), which was originally published in 2001.
---
David Westheimer, a longtime journalist and novelist, died last Tuesday in Los Angeles, the Houston Chronicle reported. He was 88.
Westheimer was best known for Von Ryan's Express, the bestseller that became a popular 1965 movie starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard. Like many of his other works of fiction, Von Ryan's Express was based on Westheimer's experience as a POW during World War II.
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