As of Friday morning, Baker & Taylor’s online systems remains down. The outage began the weekend of August 20-21. They write in an update on their website that they are “working around the clock to return to normal operations.” The update continues, “Our priority has been remediating our systems and ensuring they are sanitized. As that work is completed, our focus is transitioning to restoration, bringing our systems online, and returning to operations in a phased approach. We expect disruptions to continue this week but are hopeful we can provide timelines for individual systems and applications as the week progresses. […]
News
Washington Post To Bring Back Standalone Book Section
Washington Post Book critic Ron Charles announced in his Book Club newsletter on Friday that the newspaper will bring back its standalone books section starting September 25. The news follows the announcement that John Williams will become the new editor of Book World on September 6. Reviews by Charles and Michael Dirda will move from the daily paper to the new Sunday section. Charles writes, “Along with reviews, readers will find Q&As, publishing stories, author profiles and anything else we might dream up for this luxurious new space. As a print junky, I’m also excited to have weekly cover art […]
Baker & Taylor’s Systems Remain Offline More Than A Week After Ransomware Attack
Following a ransomware attack over a week ago (on the weekend of August 20-21), Baker & Taylor’s systems have been down, and remain so on Monday morning. The outage has been widespread: Title Source 360 and EDI have been inaccessible (and even their phone systems were down), with the company unable to process orders to library customers as a result. In the latest update, the company said: “We want to take this opportunity to thank you again for your continued patience and cooperation as we deal with the service disruption we’ve been experiencing. We know that it has been frustrating, […]
Walmart Launches Book Club
Walmart has launched the Walmart Book Club, which will feature five titles for adults annually–one for each season and one Pick of the Year. “Our team of book merchants will select titles based on reading trends, relevancy and industry market data–helping to identify exciting titles Walmart customers are sure to love,” the company said in a release. The books will have a Walmart Book Club sticker on the cover. The inaugural title is Ali Hazelwood‘s Love on the Brain, which publishes today.
Academic Publishers Experience Delays As Supply Chain Issues Continue
Printing schedules in North America and Europe are taking twice as long as they used to, reports The Financial Times, causing delays in academic publishing. They write that production has been held up by the ongoing supply chain issues that have been a feature of the pandemic, forcing companies to “alter publishing plans as well as use different types of paper and more expensive on-demand printers.” Additionally, prices are rising in every corner of printing and shipping. Tim Jones, director of design and production at Harvard University Press told FT that the time it takes to get books to warehouses […]
PRH Makes Some Strides in Diversity, Sustainability
On Tuesday, Penguin Random House released their social impact report, their “global commitment to serving our communities beyond the books we publish,” which shares programming highlights and data between January 1, 2021 – July 1, 2022. The initiative has three pillars: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Environment & Sustainability, and Free Expression & Joy of Reading. As part of their DEI goals, PRH U.S. updated its workforce demographics to reflect the staff as of October 2021. Among non-warehouse staff, 73 percent identify as women, 26 percent as men, and 0.5 percent as nonbinary. White staffers make up 74 percent of the […]