All Quiet on the Blackstone Boycott

Our Friends at WCLS report that little is new this week in Blackstone boycott because Blackstone was not responding to queries. Carmi Parker does, however, link to an article from John Warner of the Chicago Tribune about the Macmillan debacle that is worth a read.

Warner asserts “Right now, libraries are in a dispute with publisher Macmillan over e-book purchasing and rights, and today, even though I am a writer of books and enjoy making money from people who buy them, I’d like to publicly declare myself a member of team library when it comes to this particular issue.”

He adds words that will ring true (and sound familiar) to RF news followers:

“Work must be done to find a balance between the interests of publishers, libraries and the public. The truth is, much of this angst is driven by the dominance of Amazon in the e-book market, which allows that behemoth to put the squeeze on publishers.

Publishers turning around and pinching libraries is no solution. In fact, if libraries are degraded, and readers lose their faith that these institutions are worth preserving, publishers will have truly shot themselves in the foot.”

Thanks, Carmi, for posting the article. Mr. Warner, thanks for coming to bat for Team Library.