Books & all that

Sometimes I feel a new campaign coming on.

Here in Australia the Universities of NSW and Macquarie have been developing new libraries. Except they are really libraries, just learning centres.

To my mind, libraries have books. I accept that's very old-fashioned. I just like books.

We were chatting at work today about the way in which the combination of retail chains with publisher strategies actually destroyed the book industry through the creation of an inherently unstable business model. This was happening before Google and Amazon. They just added to the problem.

Hard to believe that there was once something called the back list. Publishers made a good income out of past books. Individual sales weren't necessarily high, but it provided a stability in cash flow.

Business fashions are interesting. I remember when News et al were snatching up publishers to add to their content streams. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Yes, I do think a campaign is warranted.

Maybe I should start with an explanation of network economics.