Category: pr, hype & bs

Strange little bit of news that came to me via the “copy and paste a press release into my mailto form” Allibris will be offering books for sale via OCLC’s WorldCat so librarians can buy a book instead of ILLing it. OCLC will bill you, making it even stupidly simpler. No postage, no mailing & return envelopes, no messy labelling. Is this the future of interlibrary loan? Is it really cheaper to buy the book than ILL it?

Speaking of library art, check out this description of a new art show by the guy who owns the LAPL’s old catalog cards. [thanks chris]

This whole “review policy” thing from a few days ago came about because I had gotten yet another press release in my inbox. I wrote back with a short but polite reply and asked to not be the recipient of any more press releases but sure, go ahead and send me a copy of the magazine. Got a polite and friendly reply and then a few days later a few copies of Bookmarks Magazine showed up in my mailbox. I was almost embarassed to like it so much because I hate being marketed to and, worse yet, I hate being accurately marketed to. In any case, the magazine is a review magazine more in the vein of Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust — which I am also reading this week — than Booklist or Library Journal’s reviews.

Their tastes run more to the independent, their layout tends more towards the creative, and their scads and scads of reviews are interspersed with interesting articles that give you in-depth coverage of an author or two; the Brontes and George Orwell were features in two of mine. One of the issues I read had an absolutely ingenious mystery section which included a graphical “historical mystery series timeline” as well as a US map showing the locations of many well-known fictional detectives with, of course, some capsule reviews of the books they appear in. Many of Bookmarks Magazines’ reviews also come with pullquotes from other major review sources so you can balance their reviewers’ perspectives with other well known “experts.” Without blathering on, I have to say I was really pleasantly suprised at how much I enjoyed this magazine. I don’t like most magazines aimed towards readers — they’re too ad-heavy and seem to exist for pushing product, not for fostering reading — and this one was different. You’ve read my review policy, no one paid me to say this, go check it out if you’re looking for book lust-ish recommendations, delivered bi-monthly.

OCLC has really been doing some outreach. First off, remember that they have a blog. Second of all, they have managed to work out a co-branded Yahoo toolbar with a worldcat search embedded in it. I’d send you to the OCLC link but it’s an annoying requesting-all-your-personal-info page, so I’ll just link to Gary Price’s comments and links about it. Lastly, and my favorite, they’ve got some top titles lists. Top ten, top 1000, top 1000 with all the cover art [giant page].

Maybe someone could give me some data, what level of markeet penetration does OCLC have? When they say “top 1000 titles owned by libraries” what is the difference between saying that and “top 1000 titles owned by OCLC libraries”? According to their site, they have 52,000 libraries worldwide [9134 outside the US], and according to the ALA, there are at least twice that many libraries in the US alone. The nearest “OCLC library” to me that has the #2 book, the Bible, is 40 miles from here. From there, I also found Project Gutenberg’s Top 100 lists which tells a different story, somewhat.

Political satire in a no-royalty play. Laura’s Bush is a lesbian sex farce featuring an absurdly prudish librarian and, of course, the First Lady. [thanks tom]