The gang at Design Observer have started a Flickr set showcasing the Table of Contents page. The set is meant as a visual archive of TOC and as an accompaniment to their 2007 book The Next Page: Thirty Tables of Contents which was published to coincide with AIGA's Biennial National Design Conference in Denver, the theme of which was "Next."

"Often overlooked by serious bibliophiles, the humble TOC is our portal into a world of knowledge. In the realm of the printed word, it heralds what comes next, a verbal proscenium with its own peculiar prose and typographic conventions."

One is encouraged to scan and upload contents pages from your own library and add them to the group's photo pool.

We have ebooks and book social networks. We have book trailers and internet book tv but the folks at DQ Books (nothing to do with Dairy Queen) have come up with what just might be the perfect marriage of technology and the book form.

DQ Books brings together artists, illustrators and photographers and places their visuals within the context of the book form using Flash technology. Each thematic issue is accompanied by a soundscape created by French composer Avril.

The first 4 issues are:

Invasion - 7 days of graphic improvisition by Festo and Telemolindo

Seasons - 16 illustrators, artists and photographers invent a life of a woman according to seasons

Where's the Party - Brazilian, Italian and French artists for a narcotic party, carried out with a blue Bic pen

Beneath a steel sky - From Brooklyn to Central Park beneath a steel sky, analog photography by Festo

These are the wordless novels of the 21st Century.


Thanks to Brian Cassidy for the lead

In a speech last week President George W. Bush touted the plan for his new Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University calling it "a place where we get the thinkers from around the world to come and write about and articulate the transformative power of freedom, abroad and at home."

Bush expects to raise $500 million for the library making it the costliest Presidential Library to date. The half-a-billion dollars is twice the total amount Bush spent on his entire 2004 Presidential campaign! Just think if public libraries had that kind of kind of support while he was in office.

Among the contributors to the Presidential Library are:

A sheik from the United Arab Emirates, who contributed at least $1 million.
The state of Kuwait.
The Bandar bin Sultan family.
The Sultanate of Oman.
King Hassan II of Morocco.
The amir of Qatar.
The former Korean prime minister.

China also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the library. In addition, funds were received from the late Kenneth Lay, the former head of Enron, and Dick Cheney, the current Vice President.

I received a press release the other day from Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, an outspoken critic of Bush's plan to house the library at SMU. Weaver points out that in a recent vote among members of the United Methodist Church members voted 844-20 on a petition calling for the rejection of the Bush project! How's that for an approval rating.

Apparently, this opposition is not enough. Bishop Scott J. Jones of Kansas, a staunch supporter of the library, called the petition merely procedural and that the decision rests in hands of the church's South Central Jurisdiction (SCJ).

Weaver goes on to say:

I urge Bishop Jones to reconsider and support the democratic and transparent processes of our church. I fear our communion will suffer a lingering and unnecessary wound of distrust, hurt, and anger if there is not fairness on this issue. Thousands of United Methodists...believe that honoring and "celebrating" a glaringly unrepentant UMC member, President George W. Bush, with a partisan think tank, will damage our credibility as followers of Jesus Christ and bring lasting shame upon the our church and a fine university

Article at Media Transparency Dubya's Tower of Babel

Protest SMU.org

Weaver's June 2007 piece, Southern Halliburton University

Previous Book Patrol post : And the Envelope Please: Designs for the George W. Bush Presidential Library

Much has been written about Amazon's new strategy of offering print on demand titles sold on their website exclusively through their POD company, Book Surge. Cries of monopoly and unfair business practices have permeated the discourse but there are I believe, potential opportunities for publishers and authors within this new paradigm.

Just as the arrival of Amazon changed the bookselling landscape forever their new POD strategy is sure to alter the publishing landscape in similar ways and how the publishers respond will ultimately determine their chance of survival. Will we lose as many publishers as we have book stores?

I see nothing wrong with Amazon's surge into POD. They are, after all, a business and are obligated to develop the most cost effective ways to succeed. By printing needed titles on demand to include or "marry" with other items will save them zillions of dollars in shipping charges and in shipping supplies. Just think of how many fewer boxes they will need or packing tape, or related labor expenses in being able to cut down on the amount of shipments without a decline in the number of items sold.

So where is the opportunity?

Publishers and authors can still produce books that will differ from the Amazon edition and be desired in the marketplace. The Amazon POD editions will be the mass market paperbacks of the new publishing era. There will remain a healthy market for other editions. The publishers can capitalize on this by offering their own editions that might include extra material much like the movie studios do with their DVD releases. An extra short story, an extra poem, interviews with the author, signed copies, manuscript pages etc.; the possibilities are endless. Not everyone wants their book the next day nor do they want a cheaply produced version. Quality still counts and many will still pay for it.

This is not a wake up call as some of said this is more of a last call. The rules of bookselling and publishing have changed drastically and the publishers that can respond in new innovative ways will be the ones that prosper.

Previous Book Patrol posts on the Amazon sales tax issue:

ABA Misguided In Their Support For An Internet Sales Tax

New York Booksellers Ask Spitzer to Reconsider Online Sales Tax

"Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest" -Eddie Vedder

Pearl Jam vs. Ames Bros brings together 229 posters created for Pearl Jam from 1995-2007 by the Ames Bros and Brad Klausen.

The book features over 80 comments on individual posters from all five members of Pearl Jam and running commentary from the poster designers -- offering insight into the inspiration, concepts and process of poster creation.

Details:

Bros, Ames and Brad Klausen. Pearl Jam vs. Ames Bros: 13 Years of Tour Posters. Ames Bros Inc. / Ten Club LLC, 2007. First Edition. Quarto. 263pp. including index. Illustrated throughout in color with reproductions of over 200 posters. Green cloth lettered in gilt with 3 color illustration on front board. As New, issued without dust jacket.

Book available here

Pearl Jam Press Release

Kimberly Thorpe exposes some significant structural flaws at New York's legendary independent book store in her cover story in the current issue of the New York Press.

Allegations of racism and unfair labor practices abound with much of the heat being focused on Nancy Bass Wyden, the daughter of longtime Strand owner Fred Bass and wife of Oregon senator Ron Wyden, who interestingly enough is "widely known for his impassioned support of equal opportunity in the workplace."

Most people interviewed for the piece refused to give their name for fear of retaliation though all believe "that the problems at the Strand stemmed from a single source: Nancy Bass Wyden. They believe she has worked harder than anyone to transform the Strand from an intellectual oasis to a profit-producing machine."

Before coming home to help her dad Bass Wyden got her MBA from the University of Wisconsin and spent three years working at Exxon honing her corporate skills. Going from working for a giant oil company to running a giant independent book store is alone a recipe for disaster.

"They focus more on making money than on the enjoyment of running a bookstore," said Trexler Chisholm, 26, who works in the rare books room on the third floor.

One of Bass Wyden's major initiatives was to ramp up the Strands books by the yard program, the "selling of books arranged decoratively on shelves to the rich and famous," which has nothing to do with books and everything to do with interior design. It just doesn't seem to be about the books anymore.

Yes, profits are up at the Starnd and business is good but those "profits stem from a salary structure that almost seems to push employees out the door."

Is there a point when a bookstore becomes too big to remain truly independent? Does size matter? Can there be a large independent book store with a Costco-style approach to their employees?

What a great ending to National Poetry Month. Gary Snyder has been awarded the 2008 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

"Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself. His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation." says Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and chair of the selection committee.

The $100,000 award is one of the most lucrative out there and no one is more deserving. Snyder is a true American hero and has inspired many of us to live a more compassionate life, one in tune to the beauty around and within us.

Gary Snyder at Wikipedia

Snyder's November 2007 article at the Shambhala Sun, Writer's and the War Against Nature

One hour interview with Snyder at NCTV11, the public access station for Nevada City, in 2007.

Photo by Giuseppe Moretti, September 2005. It was taken in the Dolomites while Snyder was in Italy for readings in Rome and Florence.

Like the bookselling trade the travel industry has been turned upside down by the internet. With most people now using the web to book their travel the traditional travel agency has all but disappeared. Are printed travel guides the next vicitim?

Wayne Curtis's piece in the Atlantic, Weni, Widi, Wiki, gives us a glimpse of what the future might hold.

On his trip to Seattle last fall Curtis decided to use only online resources to guide him as he explored the Emerald City. He "would depend on the kindness of strangers," relying "solely on user-generated information" as he mapped out his lodging, sightseeing and culinary needs. No guidebooks, no picking from the racks of tourist brochures in hotel lobbies, and no help from the concierge, all his "decisions would be based on advice from TripAdvisor, Yelp, Chowhound, Wikitravel, and other online travel communities."

"The information online is often piping fresh--some of these reviews had been written just days before I arrived" says Curtis.

As is the case in the bookselling world the flood of content now available to all has its drawbacks, Curtis found that "the biggest downside of Travel 2.0 is the surfeit of information--how do you sort through all this detail and random advice?" This same dilemma is front and center in the online bookselling world. How does one make sense of the fact that there could be 100 copies of the same book available for sale with a price range of $1 to $100? Unless you are a seasoned book person the answer is you can't. For the general public searching for a book online is becoming more problematic with each passing day.

We are in need of a trusted source.

Thanks to Brian Cassidy for the lead

"All of this stuff doesn't belong to us - it belongs to the culture that spawned us,...It seemed like getting it into a campus archive, with access to the people in the community that gave rise to this, was the right thing to do." - Bob Weir

It was announced this week that the University of California at Santa Cruz will be the new home of the Grateful Dead's archive. The archive will be housed in a room dubbed 'Dead Central' in the McHenry Library.

The Archive contains 30 years of material including original documents, clippings, media, article and other publications about the Dead and its individual members, its tours and performances, productions, and business. Also included are show files, programs, newsletters, posters, cover art, photographs, tickets and stickers.

Also included will be correspondence (upwards of 75,000 fan letters) and art contributed over the years by Deadheads.

It will take upwards of 2 years to process the archive.

Grateful Dead Archive page at UC Santa Cruz special Collections

Article in Silicon Valley's Mercury News

"The problem with large bookstores is that they contain usually a lot of junk. My focus as a bookseller is to keep the junk out. Because good books don't pull bad books up, bad books pull good books down."

-From a brief interview with McMurtry by Julie Riggot for the Los Angeles Downtown News.

McMurtry will receive the Los Angeles Public Library Literary Award later this week.

LA City Librarian Fontayne Holmes says of McMurtry "He really is such a book person in every single meaning of the word, as a bookstore owner, as a book collector, as a writer and as an incredible reader of literature"

Ironically enough, McMurtry will receive the honor on the same day that the venerable LA bookstore Dutton's closes its doors for good.

It was on this date in 1616, 392 years ago, that the bard left this earth.

His reach remains unprecedented, his plays are still being performed in every corner of the globe and he is still taught and read in schools and universities all over the world. His work continues to attract filmakers from all over the world with over 700 film adaptations of his work to date.

As his contemporary Ben Johnson said of him; Shakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time"

Encyclopedia Britannica's comprehensive coverage of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Resource Center

Shakespeare at Wikipedia

The Amazon influence on Shelfari is beginning to show. In their first major move since hiring publishing heavyweight David Nudo, former publisher of Publisher's Weekly, to be their Director of Sales and Marketing Shelfari has announced the creation of wiki-style author pages.

Shelfari hopes that this new feature will help them "become a destination for not only biographical information but interactions between authors and their fans"

Authors will now be able to create their own pages which "will feature an open wiki in addition to a message board and a list of written books."

Jason Kincaid has a post on the new initiative over at TechCrunch and says "With the introduction of these new profiles, Shelfari is poised to become a uniquely rich repository of literary information, and has the potential to become an IMDB for books."

IMDB, also an Amazon company, has proven to be a hugely successful content portal for all things movies and it will be interesting to see how this plays out for Shelfari.

Will they eventually charge authors to have pages? (similar to the IMDB Pro model)
Will fictional characters have their own pages?
Will you be able download e-versions of the authors work only to your Kindle?
Print copies on demand only through Book Surge?

The current book social network model of readers simply sharing their bookshelves and interacting has severe limitations when it comes to monetizing and is not, I suspect, a sustainable long-term business model. By trying to build a content destination Shelfari is trying to build a destination for advertisers. Remember, Nudo once ran the book advertising world for the New York Times.

As Kincaid also states "the success of these wiki pages will rely heavily on author interaction, which will likely be difficult to establish. Without this interaction, users might as well head to Wikipedia to get the dish on their favorite authors."

The other liability, and one all the other book social networks lack except for LibraryThing, is bibliographic integrity. No other site has been able to duplicate the bibliographic depth of LibraryThing. If Shelfari is serious about their biblio portal dream then they must address this side of the coin. All the front-end fluff will only get you so far.

One thing is clear; however, if Amazon decides to throw more of its weight behind Shelfari it will be hard to count them out.

Mike Stilkey is on a roll. On the heels of his amazing installation, "When the Animals Rebel" at Rice University this past summer comes "An Occasion of Wonder" his one-man show currently on view at at Milieu Gallerie in Bern, Switzerland.

From the exhibit intro:

Using ink, colored pencil, acrilyc, gouache and lacquer Mike Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. His work is reminiscent of Weimar-era German expressionism and his style has been described by some as capturing features of artists ranging from Edward Gorey to Egon Schiele.

"Man Trips and Falls In His Own Country" 2008 Ink, colored pencil and acrylic on old book Size: 27/29cm (10.5/7.5in)

I can think of no better afterlife for these books.

Here is a neat video of Stilkey at work.

Previous Book Patrol post, "The Book Painting of Mike Stilkey"

Side image: "The First Mortgage" 2008. Ink, colored pencil and acrylic on old books
Size: 77/29cm (30.25/11.25in)