The Amazon Matchbook Program

On September 3, 2013 Kindle announced a program they call Matchbook. This will allow people who have bought print books from Amazon since 1995 to obtain an eBook copy of the book, assuming that the publisher/author of the book has chosen to participate in Matchbook. The prices they quote for getting the eBook copy range … Read more

A New eBook Distribution Solution

Spacing published an article the other day about a new way for users to interact with subway advertising devised by a few students at the Miami Ad School.  The idea they propose is called the Underground Library and the gist of it is that ads would be placed in the trains of the New York subway system … Read more

The Anonymity of eBooks

One of the things I remember from my time in school learning to be a librarian was something the professor in the Reference Services class I took during my first semester said: never apologize for what you read. This is just one of those quotes that is so simple and yet so true.  Why should you … Read more

Closing the Book on Bookstore Closure

It’s Not All Bad News or Closing the Book on Bookstore Closure

Early last week I found out that The Toronto Women’s Bookstore is closing and that the owner would have to head over to Fusion People for new employment. It’s been open for 39 years and this isn’t the first time it’s been threatened with closure, but it looks like this time it’s going to stick. Much like previous times I have written about bookstores closing, the reasons seem to be the same.  As the owner posted on the website, some of the reasons the store is closing include Ebooks taking up market share and the difficulty in competing with online booksellers.  It’s a tragedy that this store is closing, so I decided to bring some good news along with this sadness, and I scoured the internet to find examples of bookstores that have faced closure and were saved.

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