David B. Shemano wrote: > On a related note, I live in West LA, 2 miles from UCLA. The Borders near > UCLA closed several months ago and Borders announced in connection with the > bankruptcy filing that the store in Century City will be closing. That > leaves one Barnes & Noble 2 miles from UCLA as the only new bookstore (other > than the college campus bookstore) within probably a 5-mile radius. There > are are only one or two used bookstores within that radius. Pretty stunning, > but entirely irrelevant to access to books. As a result of Amazon and > E-Books, more books are available at less cost.<
I used to go to that Borders. It was good because I could browse through (say) the economics section -- which was not subject to a shot-gun marriage with business books -- and see books I'd never even heard of and then browse through them. (The local Barnes & Noble's isn't as good, IMHO. It's largely because the Borders was closer to UCLA and had to live up to higher intellectual standards.) You can't do that on Amazon (which seems to have no intellectual standards). Unfortunately, you can't do that even at the LMU library anymore (and the UCLA library is likely the same). Because so many books are stored in the basement in compact shelving, you have to know ahead of time what book you want. I don't mourn the demise of that Borders as much as the shuttering of Papa Bach's, Dutton's Brentwood, and Midnight Special (which used to be in the same general area). Those stores would have extremely off-beat books mixed in with the standard stuff. Midnight Special used to have books representing deviant political perspectives (i.e., leftist ones). It's more than a matter of the Big Chains (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) vs. the independent bookstores. Like a lot of other arenas, the book business is what Frank & Cook call a "winner-take-all market," in which a small number of "winners" get all the fame and gelt, leaving a large number of "losers" (which are often better than the "winners" in more than one way) in the dust. (In short, there are economies of scale, so that standard slogans about "consumer sovereignty" fall down. For example, you'll see the same 30 or 40 titles at almost of all of the bookstores at airports, in drugstores, etc. What the publishers see as potentially "popular" dominates these markets, while those seen as "unpopular" never get to prove their popularity in these venues. Because Barnes and Noble and Amazon are bigger, there's more choice, but the same winner-take-all process operates.) raghu: >However, we should be careful to make a distinction between *archiving* and >access. Digital formats greatly improve access and we all benefit from that.< In theory, digital formats improve access. But intellectual property rights can and do block access. This may be seen as merely an inconvenience for consumers (one that costs them money, since they have to pay for books, music, etc.) But these property rights can be a serious barrier to scientific research. After all, for-profit researchers want to make sure that they can monopolize the knowledge about pharmaceuticals, etc., and don't give a shit about scientific progress. -- Jim Devine / "Living a life of quiet desperation -- but always with style!" _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
