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UK libraries fire staff, hire machines that say “Thank you come again”

30 September 2009

In  Leicestershire, England, the local council has fired staffers at 16 local libraries and replaced them with “automatic check-outs machines.” According to a report in The Telegraph by Andrew Hough, the move had to do with a a “perfect storm” of falling revenue and increasing demand for services — a “£1billion budget black hole” being faced by local councils across England and Wales, but it has set off a firestorm of criticism.

“Lots of staff feared for their jobs because of cuts, but no-one dreamed they would be replaced by a machine,” one library assistant tells the Telegraph. The head of a local pensioners group says, “They should not be looking to cut jobs in libraries which are essential services for elderly people. If the council needs to make cuts they should come from elsewhere.” She adds, “Whatever will they think of next.”

A spokesperson for the council, meanwhile, says the machines are an improvement, giving customers a “choice of quicker and easier methods of checking out and returning books in the library.”

Sarah Palin finishes book, asks what time royalty check will arrive

29 September 2009
She's baaaaack!

She's baaaaack!

Just four months after her book deal was announced, and just two months after she quit her job as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has finished her memoir. According to an Associated Press wire story by Hillel Italie, she finished so fast that her publisher, HarperCollins imprint Harper, has moved up her spring pub date — to November 17th. (Which would indicate that her editors must be done, er, editing already, seeing as how that date leaves barely enough time to lay out the book ((which usually takes two weeks)), proof it ((a few days)), print it ((at least 2 or 3 weeks)) and ship it around the country ((three weeks)).)

Citing an anonymous source “close” to Palin, Italie reports she spent “weeks” holed up in San Diego writing the book, and “several days” in Manhattan “working around the clock with editors at Harper.”

The book, to be called Going Rogue: An American Life (no, really) is going to have a first printing of 1.5 million copies, says Palin’s publisher, Jonathan Burnham. (The title, according to the AKMuckraker column on The Huffington Post, has an “ugly irony” to Alaskans, where’s it’s famous as the derogatory used by Palin’s administration itself against widely respected Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan when he refused to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law from the state police for dumping her sister.)

Meanwhile, the “round the clock” exertions don’t seem to have tired Palin — she left the US for Hong Kong a few days ago to begin an apparent speaking tour, which you can read about in another AP wire story, “Where’s Palin? Big bucks for speech in Hong Kong.”

Senators trying to reform Patriot Act

29 September 2009

With key provisions of the Patriot Act, including Section 215, allowing bookstore and library records to be searched by the government, set to expire December 31, two new bills have been introduced in Congress that would “add more privacy safeguards” to the act, says a Publishers Weekly report.

One, from Senators Russ Feingold and Richard Durbin, “would reauthorize the use of Section 215 orders to obtain business records but would tighten the standard to require that the records be connected to an individual suspected of terrorism or espionage, unlike the present statute that only requires that the records be relevant to an investigation.”

The other, from Senators Pat Leahy, Ben Cardin and Ted Kaufman “would reauthorize the use of Section 215 orders for four years and tighten the standard to require that records sought are relevant to an investigation and, at minimum, pertain to a suspected agent of a foreign power.”

The Campaign for Reader Privacy — an advocacy group put together by the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and the PEN American Center “to fight for changes in the Patriot Act to protect the confidentiality of reading records” — has issued a statement praising the bills.  ABA CEO Oren Teicher says, “We’re pleased to see that process underway and hope that booksellers, librarians, publishers and authors will make their voices heard by urging their own Senators to co-sponsor the bills.”

Administration that started two wars banned children’s book author from White House for putting bad ideas in children’s heads

29 September 2009
J.K. Rowling: Worse than war

J.K. Rowling: Worse than war

A story at ThinkProgress.org reports that Matt Latimer, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, says in his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, that the Bush administration “objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom” because her Harry Potter books “encouraged witchcraft.”

Hong Kong publisher publishes book banned in China

28 September 2009
Bao Pu, with another controversial publication, Prisoner of State, about

Publisher Bao Pu, with another controversial publication, Prisoner of State, the posthumous memoir of ousted former Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang

The Associated Press reports that Bao Pu, the publisher of Hong Kong-based New Century Press, has decided to publish the controversial book, The Rethinking of Chinese Civilization today — three days before a massive Oct. 1 celebration in Beijing of the 60th anniversary of Communist rule.

Originally, The Rethinking of Chinese Civilization was to be published on the mainland by the China Social Sciences Press, part of the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in January 2007.

But, as the AP explains, “The Chinese-language book by veteran journalist Xiao Jiansheng was banned on the mainland in 2007. The book is sensitive because its criticism of authoritarian governments in ancient China could be seen as a veiled attack on the current regime.”

Xiao questions the oppressive rule of the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C. to 206 B.C.), usually praised by Chinese historians because its leaders defeated rival states and united the country. He also praises the political and religious freedom during the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279), seen by Chinese historians as weak because China was divided during the latter part of the period.”

Xiao, who is an editor at Hunan Daily, published by the Chinese Communist Party branch in southern Hunan province, tells the AP, ” I decided to publish the book because I hope it will help the country’s political and economic development.” He also says that his bosses declined his offer to resign.

Bao Pu says he decided to publish the book because it challenges conventional thinking. “It makes very clear points. It’s different from the views of most Chinese scholars,” he tells the AP. “Because it’s banned in mainland China, it’s necessary to publish it in Hong Kong.”

The Fidel and Raul Show

25 September 2009

A brief Associated Press wire story says, “Juanita Castro, the exiled sister of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro, is set to release a first-person memoir in which she talks at length about her brothers.”

The book 400-page memoir set to be published in the US by Spanish language publisher Santillana USA in late October is entitled My Brothers Fidel and Raul: The Secret Story, and was co-written by Spanish-language journalist Maria Antoineta Collins.

Juanita Castro left Cuba in 1964. Says the AP, “A longtime Miami resident, she has kept a low profile and for years could be found behind the counter of the small pharmacy she owned. She retired in 2007.”

The book had been dictated 10 years earlier to Collins, but it is only now that Ms. Castro has consented to publication. And she is scheduled to appear at the Miami Book Fair in November to promote it.

An ad for the book promises,”This is the story Juanita Castro owed us all, but has never told, now here it is.” Though having missed out on the brothers last 45 years in action, you’ve got to imagine there are going to be some serious gaps in that story…

Secret Clinton tapes reveal — eh, kind of what you thought, especially about Boris Yeltsin

24 September 2009
Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

The story about Boris Yeltsin is perhaps the juciest tidbit in Taylor Branch’s new book, The Clinton Tapes; Wrestling History with the President: “President Clinton recalled getting a security alert in 1995 that the Secret Service had found Mr. Yeltsin, in his underwear, outside Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to hail a taxi. He was clearly inebriated, wanting a pizza.”

But as a New York Times blog post notes, the way the book itself is sourced is generating a lot of discussion, too: Branch was given extraordinary, secret access to Clinton throughout his presidency — some 70 interviews that were recorded … but Branch wasn’t allowed access to the recordings. “Rather, whenever he left the White House, he would dictate his recollections of the lengthy chats into cassettes as he drove home to Baltimore …. Mr. Branch indicated that he would sometimes sit in his driveway, dictating away in the middle of the night.”

What calls all this in question, of course, is that there were a lot of prosecutors who would have liked to get their hands on those tapes — Clinton’s or Branch’s — but both men kept their existence secret.

Meanwhile, Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post notes others are having a field day hashing out Clinton’s behind-the-scenes commentary on George Bush, Al Gore, and Maureen Down.

Wife of South Carolina idiot — no, the other South Carolina idiot — to write memoir about putting up with idiots

23 September 2009
The woman who isn't standing next to this man is writing a book

The woman who isn't standing next to this man is writing a book

The wife of disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford — remember, the clod who told his staff he was going on a nature hike and instead went to Argentina on the taxpayers dime to see his girlfriend? — has signed a book deal for a memoir that will “grapple with the universal issue of maintaining integrity and a sense of self during life’s difficult times.” Terms of Jenny Sanford’s deal with Random House imprint Ballantine Books were not disclosed, nor was the title, but it was given a pub date: May 2010. If the book is not yet printed, that’s a pretty fast turn-around for the big publishers, and a Ballantine rep admitted that “She will probably be working with a collaborator on the entire book — more of a time issue than anything else because we want to get it out.” No explanation was given for the rush.

Meanwhile, Jenny Sanford may be feeling a certain schadenfreude — her husband, who has refused to step down as governor despite numerous calls and investigations suggesting he do so, and from whom she is separated, had his own book deal terminated after the scandal broke.

Unsafe at any income level

21 September 2009

It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Ralph Nader would say: Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! But in fact, it’s the title of Nader’s new book, which also isn’t the kind of book you’d expect Nader to write: it’s a novel. And, as a rather garbled Associated Press wire story by Hillel Italie notes, the title isn’t necessarily a joke: the book features a team of super-heroes based on real-life gazillionaires “who conspire to set off a progressive revolution.” That is, it consists of Ted Turner, the late Paul Newman, Bill Cosby, Barry Diller, Yoko Ono, and Ross Perot, and others, and they’re led by Warren Buffet.

“Fiction is a way to liberate the imagination,” Nader tells Italie, “to see what could happen if 17 billionaires and super-rich people really put their minds to it … and took on the existing business power bloc and the politicians in Washington who serve (it).”

Meanwhile, the report itself doesn’t sound like the kind of thing the AP usually reports on, either. Yep, it’s a rare instance of the AP covering a book from an indie publisher. It’s also a rare instance of the AP book reporter leaving out a fundamental detail that he never leaves out when writing about the big boys: that is, who’s publishing the book. Moby, as ever, is happy to fill in the mainstream blanks: It’s being published by lefty stalwart Seven Stories Press, of New York, New York.

Australian government can’t decide whether to kill Australian book biz now or later

18 September 2009

The battle in Australia over “parallel imports” of books — lifting restrictions against importing books from other countries that are the same as books published by Australian publishers — may be nearing an end. As previously reported on MobyLives, the Australian government’s Productivity Commission recommended lifting the restriction — also known as “territorial copyright” — because it said it would help lower the cost of books. The country’s biggest bookselling chain, Dymock’s, has been aggressively lobbying in favor of the move, while just about everyone else — including groups representing Australian publishers, writers, and independent booksellers, as well as some British publishers who think it will damage their imprints there — have opposed it. Others have pointed out that a similar lifting of restrictions in neighboring New Zealand devastated that country’s book industry across the board.

Now, says a report in The Australian by Leonore Taylor, “The Productivity Commission has launched a robust defence of its conclusion,” while the “federal cabinet seeks a compromise solution on the contentious issue,” amd a report from a publishers’ group says “the commission had failed to take into account the risk that repealing the restrictions would ultimately lead to more expensive books as fewer big retailers came to dominate the market.”

But Cabinet Ministers who have to vote on a recommendation to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd are sharply divided, and Taylor says “a compromise could be considered, along the lines of the commission’s draft report, which recommended the import restrictions apply for 12 months after the release of a book.”