Virtually all the big ancient libraries have been destroyed – Alexandria, Xi’an, Cordoba – yet not by new technologies but deliberately by military power. What does this teach us about today’s controversy on new digital libraries? (in German only) Fast alle der großen alten Bibliotheken wurden zerstört – aber nicht durch neue Formen und Technologien [...]

With the enthusiasm and the energy we are so fond of, and thanks to a hint from Sabina, we found and hereby proudly present THE solution for all those who regret that with e-Books, book sniffing may come to an end: Tested with all available e-Book formats, comes in 5 flavors, with attractive (yet a [...]

Following the controversy around the Google Settlement and European publishers’ and author (and collecting) societies, one could assume to witness a battle between a bunch of European Jedi knights against that Dark Vader from Mountain View, California. From a more detached reader’s point of view, things are clearly more complex. While Google chose to digitize [...]

Is our culture threatened by Google and by the Open Access movement for freely accessible science publications? Are Google’s library scanning programs and the so called “Google settlement” with the US Author’s Guild a menace against the freedom of expression in Germany? Such is the opinion expressed by the “Heidelberg Appell” made public by Roland [...]

Es ist bemerkenswert, dass all die heiß umstrittenen Themen in der aktuellen Debatte rund ums Buch – seine kulturelle Stellung als Kulturgut, das Urheberrecht, die Rolle der Verlage und des Handels – in so gut wie allen gängigen Standarddefinitionen des Buches seit dem 19. Jahrhundert nicht einmal angesprochen werden. Und viele kolportierte Thesen über Trends [...]

Having the pleasure and the privilege to travel with this group of US non fiction editors to see a number of German publishers in Munich and Frankfurt – C.H. Beck, C. Hanser, Campus, Suhrkamp, S. Fischer, Random House  – the most interesting insight was at how many levels these markets have drifted apart: Selling a [...]

In only one day, I came across two just hilarious examples of how books and minds, across time and space, mock our funny lives as book worms. I currently tour German publishers with a group of US editors, courtesy to the German Book Office of the Frankfurt Book Fair. This morning, after a nice meeting [...]

It is just amazing how a really big organization like Amazon in less then 2 weeks makes an about face in their strategy for their arguably most ambitious strategic project, the Kindle. After doing everything and a bit to roll out a radically proprietary machine, closing it like a can of Campell’s tomato soup to [...]

It was Geety Dharmaraja of New Dehli, a beaming lady with an inescapable sense of mission and the founder of a stunning Indian translation project called Katha who made several of the most remarkable points at this week’s Salzburg Global Seminar on translation. “Perhaps we are about to go full cycle”, she told the startled: [...]

Tracking news about how the crisis affects publishing over the past two months produces some strange findings. Almost instantly, starting as of  November 2008, we saw predictions about how the crisis would hit the industry. Then in December – and now again, with the year’s end reporting – we are told that notably in the [...]