You’ve Got Mail, the Nora Ephron romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, has been doing more than just making lots of money. It’s recently been the bone of contention between two parties for whom the independent vs. chain issue really, really matters. In one corner is feisty columnist Pat Holt, the former book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle whose free twice-weekly e-mail column covers the publishing industry, and in the other is Oren J. Teicher, the chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association. (You can subscribe to Holt’s column by going to http://www.nciba.com/patholt.html and you can access the American Booksellers Association at http://www.bookweb.org.) In brief, the ABA offered free advance screening tickets to booksellers in 25 cities and ABA member stores received You’ve Got Mail in-store merchandising materials, which basically ensured the ABA’s stamp of approval on the movie, in which Tom Hanks plays the heir to a company of chain bookstores and Ryan the owner of an independent bookstore eventually run out of business by the chain. After Holt went after the movie’s political underpinnings (“chain bookstores are just going to plow independents under in the name of ‘progress'”), Teicher fired back that Holt “misses the point on a whole bunch of levels. First of all — it’s only a movie for Pete’s sake — so let’s not take it that seriously.” He’s right, it is only a movie, but for anyone interested in the chain vs. independent skirmish, Holt and Teicher’s debate is a very thorough discussion of the matter…
Anita Givens, the Texas State Board of Education’s director of instructional technology, is part of a committee tasked by the Texas Legislature in its previous session with conducting the Computer Network Study, meant to investigate “the cost and benefits of using computer networks to deliver instruction and in particular updates to textbooks.” But her work doesn’t concern only electronic issues: For Givens, “a book is two things: one, it’s the paper and binding, but it’s also the content. And the electronic book has to have those two components.” In November, the Board sent out a request for proposals to consulting services who will advise the agency on how to conduct a pilot program beginning next fall for introducing electronic books into selected school districts. Currently, the agency is working closely with 41 school districts across the state that already have some form of electronic instruction in place. “We have a number of products that include online components, CD-ROM, other kinds of electronic media. But last year, we adopted an Internet-based textbook for biology and so the possibility of doing that has been made available to publishers, and some are submitting electronic materials,” Givens says. The committee conducting the study is asking about “all the same things that would happen with a book,” Givens says. “If a student has an electronic book, do they carry it with them everywhere, do they keep it in their locker, is it in the classroom, do they take it home? How much do those materials cost to deliver, to maintain? And then teachers — how do they incorporate this new approach into the teaching and learning process, what’s required in that regard? …
There are things you can do on the printed page that look different on a computer or electronic device; there’s some things you can do on an electronic device you can’t do on the printed page. So [we’re] examining those issues.”…
Borders hosts a Neil Gaiman Stardust party on Tuesday, January 5 at 7pm. Gaiman won’t be in attendance, but 40 first edition copies of Stardust will be there.
This article appears in January 1 • 1999 and January 1 • 1999 (Cover).