More libraries going for digitization of knowledge, e-resources
Source: Times of India
Leading educational institutes and libraries are making books immortal – virtually. Rare books and publications are now in the focus of many local and national-level projects of digitization.

On academic front, projects like INFLIBNET, acronym for Information and Library Network Centre, hold great promise, believe experts. Read more »

DSC South Asian Literature Festival
Source: indianprinterpublisher.com
The UK will host the DSC South Asian Literature Festival (SALF) dedicated to the varied cultures of the South Asian subcontinent, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal from the 15th to 24th October 2010. The DSC South Asian Literature Festival is founded by publishing colleagues Jon Slack and Bhavit Mehta, who have set up a not-for-profit company called Amphora Arts to administer the Festival. There is also a new prize for South Asian writing created, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, worth US$50,000 to the winner. Read more »

A One-Stop-Shop for Booklovers in Bangalore
Source: Daily News & Analysis
Spread over four floors and close to 2,500 sq ft of prime location – MG Road’s newly refurbished Kannan Building – PageTurners is a collaboration between Penguin Books India and Surya Infotainment Products (SIP), the successor to the bookshop and magazine businesses of LB Publishers and Distributors, one of India’s oldest booksellers, which used to run a bookstore in the same location on MG Road. Read more »

Winking at the Kindle
Source: NY Times, Mint
Amazon.com will introduce two new versions of the Kindle e-reader this month, one for $139, the lowest price yet for the device. The reader that ships to India, among other countries, will ship Aug. 27, have the same six-inch reading area as earlier Kindles but weigh about 15 percent less and are 21 percent smaller. The Kindles have twice the storage, up to 3,500 books. Read more »

In a related development, India’s fledgling e-book reader business is set to gain a new player with the unveiling of Wink, about two weeks before the Kindle is launched. Read more »

A Bookstore on Wheels
Source: rediff.com
Mitra & Ghosh Publishers Private Ltd, one of the oldest and most prominent publishing houses of Bengal has taken the initiative of organising a mobile book fair across West Bengal, starting July this year. Mitra & Ghosh is launching this venture in collaboration with Mass Education. Read more »

Rajarhat: Kolkata’s new book hub?
Source: Times of India
Steps are afoot to give the city’s boi para a new address.If things go according to plan, book lovers will have another place besides College Street to visit to find the titles of their choice.

At a meeting with the Publishers and Booksellers Guild, the Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) discussed its plan for a permanent book bazaar along either side of a 1.5-km stretch along Rajarhat’s main arterial road. It will have permanent book stalls with reading and publishing facilities. Read more »

Video for a read
Source: Hindustan Times
Book trailers swept the publishing industry in the West in 2007, but it is now that Indian publishers and independent authors are exploring the potential of such videos.

“This is a relatively new method of publicising books, especially in India. The idea is to take publicity for books beyond the conventional ambit, into new areas that consumers today are zoning into,” says Hemali Sodhi of Penguin India. The publishing house has a YouTube channel, which “reaches out to younger readers.” Read more »

Pearson launches its online book store
Source: Financial Express
Pearson Education India has announced the launch of its first ‘Online Bookstore’ through its online retail partner, VRVBookshop.

The online bookstore will carry the complete catalogue of all Pearson Education India’s books, including imprints like Addison Wesley, Longman, Prentice Hall, QUE, SAMS, Wharton School Publishing, Peachpit and more. Read more »

ACK media back to core publishing with title on Mother Teresa
Source: Daily News & Analysis
Kickstarting its initiative to create new titles after a gap of four years, publishing house ACK Media, known for the renowned comic series Amar Chitra Katha, has launched a new title on Mother Teresa on her 100th birth anniversary on August 26. Read more »

Bookstores opening a new chapter on survival
Source: Economic Times

This is an epilogue that is being rewritten. Indian bookstores are changing the narrative of selling books by trying new and innovative ways to counter the threat posed by the internet age that has such scalps as the iconic US bookseller Barnes & Noble on the block.

Big Indian book retail chains like Crossword, Apeejay Oxford Bookstores and Starmark are moving beyond the bookends and taking initiatives to transform the in-store experience that is not just about reading. Some are even making inroads into cyberspace.

Read more »

Indian Language Literature Sidetracked by Indians
Source: digitalgoa.com
Awarded with the prestigious Bhartiya Jnanpith award, distinguished writer Ravindra Kerekar said that Indians were sidetracking literatures authored in Indian languages. The 85-year-old author of 25-odd Konkani books, Kerekar said that Indians have inclined towards English language, which is only uprooting Indians from their home land. Read more »

Time to face the digital challenge
Source: The Telegraph
With rapid advances taking place in digital technology, can books be identified with printed paper any longer, especially when countless books and research papers are being posted on the Internet? What does ‘print’ mean these days? Can we use the term in the pre-digital, ‘books in print’ sense? Can academics use digital editions as citations for their works? What, in short, is the relationship between publication and print? These fundamental questions are being asked while discussing the future of the book as technology comes to play a central role in the publishing industry. Read more »

Damning the oriental scene
Source: Business Standard
These are four things the author would love to see changing about the Indian literary scene in the next decade.

A century ago, the first Indian writers to claim English as one of their own languages read broadly; their imaginations were fired by their counterparts in Russia, Europe and America. A generation ago, Amitav Ghosh chronicled the practice of using the list of Nobel literature laureates as a kind of reader’s guide – a dreary but worthy way of inviting the world onto one’s bookshelves. What we’re seeing today isn’t just a preoccupation with literary success; it’s an unhealthy self-obsession.

Read more »

A library in each pocket
Source: Indian Express

The implications of this technological revolution for the protocols of reading are yet to be fully fathomed. The idea that each one of us can literally carry thousands of books with us at any given moment ought to excite the imagination of even the most reluctant bibliophile. But the fact that this technology is now available also means that we need to think more systematically about it. For relatively little investment it should be possible to expand access to books, by disseminating these kinds of devices.

Read more »

Never-ageing story
Source: The Telegraph
Why are adults reading books meant for teenagers?

No longer are books clearly demarcated in shelves marked as children’s fiction, books for the young adults and adults. Divisions like Enid Blyton for the kids, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys for the teens and then the wide world of adult literature is passe. In fact, if mamma and papa are picking up the kid’s copy of Harry Potter or the Twilight saga to read, the kids are making themselves comfortable with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Dan Brown, Chetan Bhagat and his ilk. One book serves the entire family.

Read more »

New Book Releases and Events
This section reports on new book and journal releases, new imprints and other similar events.

JUMPSTART Join the Dots…
Source: German Book Office
A two day event bringing together people who work with children, books and children’s books; people who love children, books and children’s book; people who write, illustrate, design, publish, market, sell, read, spread books for children. Just some of the way one could sum up Jumpstart Join the Dots that provided the first of its kind platform in Asia to bring together various stakeholders to discuss diverse issues around the world of children’s books and reading.

A truly international event, it saw 60 speakers from 9 countries including India, Abu Dhabi, France, Germany, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK, besides 300 participants and about 25 partners and supporters. Held at the wonderful halls of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi, the event had various programmes happening simultaneously. From panel discussions to workshops, performances to one-on-one feedback sessions, networking to sharing of ideas, there was something for everyone at Jumpstart. With various stands for publishers, organizations and book events there was also a chance to display books, talk business, and network at this event.

“Amazon’s Kindle to help grow the publishing market”
Source: Delhi State Booksellers’ & Publishers’ Association (DSBPA)
Delhi State Booksellers’ & Publishers’ Association (DSBPA), organised a technology familiarisation programme for its members as part of the monthly meeting of the “DSBPA Children’s Books Forum” in New Delhi. The Forum invited consumer technology commentator, children’s books author and a Kindle user, Nimish Dubey, to present a talk on ‘Konnecting with Kindle’.

The presentation centred around the impact of Kindle on reading preference of book lovers and its impact on the publishers with a live demo of the device from a user’s perspective. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Dubey asserted that “something like the Kindle will transform publishing as we know it today, it just not being a handheld e-Book reader device but an entire eco-system full of potential for everyone who loves to read and of course the authors and publishers”.

He also said that ” the Kindle suddenly makes it possible for anyone to self-publish and provides publishers with a huge opportunity to reach markets beyond geographical barriers, without worrying about factors like printing costs, warehouse, transportation and inventory”.

Ghummakkad Narain, Travelling Children’s Festival in Dehradun
Ponytale Books has partnered with UNESCO’s ‘Donate a Book’ initiative launched earlier this year. This path-breaking initiative brings into sharp focus the need to give children wider access to books in order to inculcate reading habits and also provide books to those children who do not have easy access to them.

As part of this initiative, a travelling children’s festival in Dehradun, ‘Ghummakkad Narain’ organised by local NGOs Nivesh and Himalayan Hub for Art and Cultural Heritage (HHACH), was inaugurated by Hon’ble Margaret Alva, Governor of Uttarakhand on July 30th. The 9-week festival will give the children of Dehradun an opportunity to interact with leading authors and illustrators.

Ghummakkad Narain is an elderly gentleman who is extremely fond of books and travels around reading them out to children. He is fun to be with as he makes reading a whole lot of fun. He is a store house of knowledge and has a unique way of sharing it – in the form of stories. He is loved by both children and the elderly, wherever he goes.

A bilingual book of love poems
Source: The Hindu
A bilingual poetry collection, Pranayasatakam, consisting of poems of Thachom Poyil Rajeevan, is ready for release.

Says Rajeevan about his latest poetic venture: “Bilingual publishing is very common nowadays in world poetry, especially in Europe and Latin America, as it enhances the reach of poetry as a medium. But, it is very rare in Malayalam. In Kerala, it was only Ayyappa Panicker’s epoch-making poem Kurukshetram that had got a multilingual edition.”

Read more »

Books that don’t promise solutions, but do offer hope
Source: Daily News & Analysis (DNA)
Books for Change is a publishing house within the country’s social sector.

Started and based out of Bangalore, their books on socially relevant issues have a market the world over. Nevertheless, being in the alternative publishing line (which includes books in the genre of social issues and sometimes art and history), the publishing house faces tremendous challenge in the current profit-driven market. Shobha Ramachandran, manager and publisher, says, “Gaining access to book stores in the city has been a challenge.” Despite that, says Ramachandran their books record good sales.

Read more »

The reach of Rupa
Source: The Hindu
This August, Rupa completes 75 years in the publishing world. Managing Director Kapish Mehra talks to about its humble beginnings from Kolkata.

“We don’t dilly dally much with authors. In just 3-4 weeks, we tell them if we can publish their work. Also, every year, we give an award to an author in recognition of his/her work.”

Read more »