“End of an era!“ writes a colleague from London when the news hit: https://publishingperspectives.com/2020/12/reedpop-cancels-new-yorks-bookexpo-bookcon-retiring-the-event-permanently-covid19/ “No more dinners, dancing, or fun, ever again, anywhere, any more…” “Oh, sad,” I responded. “What times we’ve had!” I remember the BEA show in Miami in 1994, the heady elation after the first day of our Internet Start-up Booth. It →
May 5, 2020 OBS posts these CDC guidelines as a public service, as Massachusetts and other states and localities consider reopening their economies while COVID-19 remains at large in our communities. CDC submitted to White House (downloaded from San Jose Mercury News) Interim Guidance for Child Care Programs The reopening of child care programs is →
Many decision points contribute to a trade editor’s GO/NO GO final opinion. A bestseller will generate revenue to keep the doors open and the firm able to further its mission. A mid-list winner fills an ongoing content need and will keep selling and selling, slow and steady. In these POD days, when the words “out →
As things speed up to such an extent that there remains no time any more to muse, ponder, discuss, cogitate, and write things down, the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword appears to be morphing into “the phone is mightier than the sword.” Witness the recent rise of live streaming as →
OBS applauds Macmillan Publishers for actively defending our First Amendment rights in publishing Michael Woolf’s controversial book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” Rather than bowing to White House demands that Macmillan cease and desist from publishing the book, which offers insights into the current administration’s White House, Macmillan subsidiary Henry Holt and Co. pushed →
This past Saturday Senator Elizabeth Warren visited Cape Ann, where OBS is headquartered, for an inspiring town hall with 800 citizens. OBS president Laura Fillmore was the first to ask a question of the Senator, and, fittingly, the internet pioneer asked about the FCC’s December 14 decision to eliminate Net Neutrality, basically turning the free and open →
Come gather round the fireplace for a few minutes, with some of the folks from Brooklyn College, to celebrate in a few short readings some banned books I bet we’ve all read….
During these challenging times, some may find it tempting to try and purge the online environment of propaganda and hate speech — but we must not succumb to the siren song of censorship, whose blade, given time, cuts equally right, left, or center. Danger signs manifest themselves today — some gatekeepers of our internet infrastructure →