- Big cuts in library services due to the "economic storm". (Smart Bitches)
- Borders tells a major distributor that it won't "be paying us for two months due to anticipated excessive returns." (Media Bistro – this is pretty disturbing post. Might want to get a shot ready to down before or after reading it).
- "Sales at the nation's largest retailers fell off a cliff in October, casting fresh doubt on the survival of some chains and signaling that this will probably be the weakest Christmas shopping season in decades." (New York Times). One book expert told me that without people going to the stores to shop, the books that would sell would be in the grocery stores and the discounters like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
BUT!
- Ebook sales are up. "In the U.S., wholesale revenue zoomed from $8 million in Q3 of 2007 to $14 million for the same quarter of ’08." (Teleread.org- read the post for provisos)
The answer is, of course, to buy more books. For great justice.
Or publisher profits, whatever.
Frankly, I don’t really blame people for putting books at the bottom of the budgetary list in these times. Reading is essential, but you can read for free (unless the local government just closed the library.) Would be nice if people bought more books, but dude, because they want the books, not to save publishers from their own weird and uneconomic practices.
I’ll post over here what I posted at SBTB:
I work in library services for an international book wholesaler, and I have to say that as of right now we aren't seeing the affects of this, thank Jeebus. We might have a few accounts across the country that have cut back on ordering, but so far none have completely stopped.
In fact, we're so busy right now I'm working 50 hours a week and even that isn't enough. It seems for every library facing fiscal challenges, there are two somewhere in the U.S. opening a new branch, so take what consolation you can from that. And that's just for our company – we're one of two large library service providers.
I have to agree that the library is the last place any city needs to make cuts, especially since some forms of entertainment keep going up in price.