Libraries Aren’t Happy with OverDrive
Oh, OverDrive.
OverDrive is planning on enacting a change that will require new users to create an OverDrive account rather than use their library card. The ReadersFirst coalition of libraries has written a letter to OverDrive CEO Steve Potash protesting the change.
Stressing that “libraries, not the vendors we pay,” should own the customer relationship, the letter expresses “concern with the storage of private patron information” and posits that establishing the OverDrive account is not necessary and is “essentially a marketing opportunity” that could “erode the relationship that the library has with our patrons.”
That’s a valid concern. What made OverDrive beneficial to both readers and libraries was that it allowed free access to eBooks while also updating the way we use the library in the digital age. The relationship is between the library and the readers not OverDrive and the readers so this could, in fact, erode the reader/library relationship.
Hachette’s Writers Target Amazon Board Members
Check out the protest letter here
Shakespeare’s Works Will Be Translated into Chinese
Check out more on the story over at Angel’s piece on the site.
NYT Give Its Bestsellers List a Facelift
Young American’s Library Habits Are Scrutinized In New Pew Report
Book Awards:
National Book Award 2014 Announces Its Non-Fiction Finalists
We have our 10 finalists for the National Book Award for Non-Fiction yesterday and it features for the first time a cartoonist (Roz Chast), a Pulitzer prize winner (Edward O. Wilson) and a Tony winner (John Lahr). The 2014 awards will take place October 15th on NPR’s Morning Edition. You can find the list of nominees for the finalists across all genres here.
Scotiabank Giller Prize Announces Its 2014 Longlist
The biggest prize for Canadian fiction has announced its long list and Christa broke it down for us on the site.
Literary Facts:
122,951,031 Books Given Away by Publishers in WW2
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, America’s book publishers took an audacious gamble. They decided to sell the armed forces cheap paperbacks, shipped to units scattered around the globe. Instead of printing only the books soldiers and sailors actually wanted to read, though, publishers decided to send them the best they had to offer. Over the next four years, publishers gave away 122,951,031 copies of their most valuable titles.
What’s really interesting about this story is how the actions of these publishers help create a generation of readers and make the pleasure of reading more accessible to everyone. Who does love a feel good story?
Books On Screen:
Dan Brown’s 1998 Novel, The Digital Fortress, Gets Pilot Order From ABC
Brown’s book “Digital Fortress,” which was first released in 1998 and centers on cryptographer Susan Fletcher, is being adapted as a pilot for ABC by director Ron Howard’s production company Imagine Entertainment
Side Note: I grabbed this book from my French teacher’s book box during my high school’s 15 minutes of D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) in the mornings. I never finished it and didn’t remember the title. My French teacher went on to become a guidance counselor so the book box disappeared. It’s all very tragic, really. So you know why I’m excited for this news.
FOX Adapts Alexandra Bracken’s YA Series, The Darkest Minds, and Finds Its Producer
Chad Hodge, best known for creating the Fox television series Wayward Pines, will be adapting The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken, The Hollywood Reporter states.
John Green’s YA book, Paper Towns, Finds Its Female Lead in Model-Turned-Actress: Cara Delevingne
The Fault in Our Stars‘ Nat Wolff is playing the male lead in the film, which will be directed by Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank)…Paper Towns reunites several players from TFIOS, including screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and Temple Hill’s Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen, who are back to produce. The Fox 2000 project is slated for release July 31, 2015.
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies Has Found Its Mr. Collins In Matt Smith
The long-in-the-works, on-and-off again project is finally going before cameras Sept. 24 with a cast that includes Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote and Douglas Booth. Burr Steers is behind the camera. The movie is a horror-comedy spin on Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice. The heroine, Liz Bennett (James), is pressured by her family to marry into a wealthy upper-class home but chafes at the stiff social mores of Victorian England. Instead, she feels that she should help defend the countryside against the onslaught of a horrifying zombie plague. Smith will play Mr. Collins, a parson who is on the lookout for a wife and proposes to Bennett.
Super-keen for a Dan Brown tv series and NOT SORRY!