The European Commission has launched their Europeana project, meant to provide a collection of digitized cultural resources from across Europe. But the NYT notes that “more than half of its two million items will come from just one of the 27 countries in the European Union: France…. Only 1 percent of the content has information about Germany, 1.4 percent about Spain and only 10 percent about Britain.” The site draws on the archives of over 1,000 museums, libraries and archives, presenting books, paintings, maps, videos, and newspapers, all free of copyright restrictions. The EU’s goal is to present 10 million […]
More on Nabokov's LAURA
Dmitri Nabokov “has finally broken his silence about the contents” of the late Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, which is set for publication rather than the burning originally called for by the author. And he shows the index cards on which it has written–which have been stored in a Swiss bank vault–to the BBC’s cameras. He told the BBC, “My father told me what his most important books were. He named Laura as one of them. One doesn’t name a book one intends to destroy. He would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he […]
Barnes & Noble Earnings Preview, and More Financials
Shares in Barnes & Noble touched all-time lows in Tuesday’s trading with the company’s market cap below $800 million after dropping almost 6 percent–and the decline has continued in early trading today. On Thursday the retailer will report quarterly earnings. Their guidance forecast a loss of 10 cents to 15 cents a share, but analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect a loss of 16 cents per share, on sales of $1.17 billion. BAMM reports on Friday, and Borders releases results on Tuesday, November 25 after the market closes. At current prices, the market value of Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million […]
UK Sales Down Over 4 Percent
Even as holiday sales volume picks up in the UK, as compared to last year sales are consistently down 4 percent or more. According to Nielsen Bookscan figures, total expenditures for the four weeks ending November 15 were down 4.1 percent, while unit sales declined 4.5 percent. For the recent week by itself, total spending dropped 3.9 percent compared to last year.Bookseller
People
At Picador, David Rogers and Sam Douglas have both been promoted to editor. Sam worked at Henry Holt for two years before joining Picador in April 2006. Among his titles at Picador are Ron Rash’s Chemistry and Other Stories, a PEN Faulkner finalist, and Beth Helms’ Dervishes, a Sargent First Novel Prize finalist, as well as a broad range of fiction and nonfiction reprints. Sarah Shumway has joined the Katherine Tegen Books imprint at Harper Children’s as senior editor, acquiring primarily middle-grade and YA fiction. She had been at Dutton Children’s. Don Weise has been named publisher of Alyson Books. […]
More on Cellphone Bar-Code Apps
On a private mailing list I belong to there was considerable discussion of the bar-code-reading apps for the new T-Mobile phone that is first to use Google’s Android operating system. One looks at a bar code and searches Google Book Search; another, called Shop Savvy, looks at the bar code through the built-in camera and “and up pops the cheapest price on the product as well as reviews from people who have purchased the product,” so it will present book prices (among other things) from a variety of sites. Yesterday on NPR’s All Tech Considered feature, they said the software […]