Thursday, May 21, 2009
Book launch 17th May
Off to sunny London to celebrate the launch of the new book by Baker D and Evans W on digital library economics, published by Chandos. The launch was held in the New Academic Building at the LSE (I went there -- nice to see the old place doing so well). More delicious anomie for me, but I had a useful time chatting to the contributors, who turned out to be a pretty high-powered bunch. I found myself swapping ideas for research (again) with Principals and Professors. This book is a major event beyond any doubt.
I also chatted up the publishers' reps, as always, to find out what was selling well and if there were any gaps in the market.
We also talked about e-book readers and which one was likely to win the battle of the formats. I like the elegant Sony, but smart money seemed to be on the Kindle as soon as Amazon get their UK act together and find someone to host their online ordering system (a kind of i-tunes for books). The Chandos people also said publishers are changing to suit e-reading - publishing individual chapters, for example, so you could search for all the relevant stuff on, say, digital libraries in the EU and download six or seven chapters from different books. Can't wait! I also said I fancied reading fiction that way too -- a chapter of Jane Austen then a chapter of Moby Dick, maybe mixed with a chapter from Capital Vol 1 -- but they looked at me as if I were strange
I also chatted up the publishers' reps, as always, to find out what was selling well and if there were any gaps in the market.
We also talked about e-book readers and which one was likely to win the battle of the formats. I like the elegant Sony, but smart money seemed to be on the Kindle as soon as Amazon get their UK act together and find someone to host their online ordering system (a kind of i-tunes for books). The Chandos people also said publishers are changing to suit e-reading - publishing individual chapters, for example, so you could search for all the relevant stuff on, say, digital libraries in the EU and download six or seven chapters from different books. Can't wait! I also said I fancied reading fiction that way too -- a chapter of Jane Austen then a chapter of Moby Dick, maybe mixed with a chapter from Capital Vol 1 -- but they looked at me as if I were strange
# posted by A Sociologist : 3:33 PM
