American Library Association

Publishing houses are flooding the market with titles that tackle bullying. The books are aimed at all age groups — from “Bully,” a picture book for elementary-grade students, to the “The Bully Book,” for middle school children, about an average kid who suddenly becomes everyone’s favorite victim, to “Sticks and Stones” by Emily Bazelon, a recent release for adults that includes both stories and analysis. According to World Cat, the number of English-language books tagged with the key word “bullying” in 2012 was 1,891, an increase of 500 in a decade.

PLASTERED on the wall of San Francisco’s main public library are 50,000 index cards, formerly entries in the library’s catalogue. The tomes they refer to may be becoming decorative, too. Not only can library patrons now search the collection online, they may also check out electronic books without visiting the library. For librarians, “e-lending” is a natural offer in the digital age. Publishers and booksellers fear it could unbind their business.

Worries about the effect of libraries on the book trade are not new. But digital devices intensify them.

By now you've likely heard that the Supreme Court has ruled, in a 6-3 decision, in favor of immigrant scientist Supap Kirtsaeng in Kirtsaeng V. Wiley.

In what's being heralded as a win for consumers and libraries, and a loss for publishers, the SCOTUS overturned a previous ruling against Kirtsaeng, who had been buying textbooks printed (legally) abroad—where they cost significantly less than they do in, say, the United States—and then reselling them in the U.S. on eBay and turning a handsome profit in the process.

In a statement yesterday, Wiley's President & CEO Stephen M. Smith wrote: "We are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng and overturned the Second Circuit’s ruling.  It is a loss for the U.S. economy, and students and authors in the U.S. and around the world."

El Paso author Benjamin Alire Sáenz won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction -- one of the most prestigious honors in literature -- for his collection of stories in "Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club."

"This award allows me to keep my job for a while," Sáenz said jokingly Tuesday.

He paused, took a breath and said he considered his writing a gift for which he thanked his mother, his friends and "everyone who has ever loved me, inspired me and believed in me."

Disparate. Collegial. Decentralized. Collaborative.

If Chicago publishing professionals agree on one thing about the city's publishing scene, it's that it is not easy to characterize. About to celebrate 175 years as a major publishing hub (Chicago's first publisher, Robert Fergus, set up shop in 1839), today the city is ranked second in the printing and publishing industry, behind New York.

Some of the area's earliest publishers still survive, among them Rand McNally (est. 1856). Many houses are long gone, for example Reilly and Britton, which published L. Frank Baum's beloved Oz books. Some, like Scott, Foresman & Co. have been absorbed by other publishers. In fact, if Chicago publishing professionals lament one change that has taken place over the past decade or so, it is consolidation, to which a number of local publishers have fallen victim.

A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Zeina Abirached and published in 2012 by Graphic Universe, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, has been named a 2013 Batchelder Honor Book. The book was originally published in French by Editions Cambourakis in 2007 and translated into English by Edward Gauvin.

Macmillan will start selling ebooks to libraries in the next few months. In a statement, the company detailed a pilot program that would distribute 1,200 backlisted titles from the Minotaur crime fiction imprint, the first time it's offered a library program. Like most other big publishers, though, the ebooks will come with restrictions: only one user at a time can check them out, and each copy will only last for 52 checkouts or two years, whichever comes first. As tight as that leash seems…

Today OverDrive announced that it will enhance its industry-leading library service platform with streaming video and audio technology. The new services will improve ease of use and device compatibility for OverDrive-hosted video, audiobook and music collections at libraries and schools around the world. OverDrive will demonstrate its streaming technology this weekend (Jan. 25- 28) at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting at Seattle’s Washington State Convention Center, Booth 1115.

Where is the book industry going, what will my workplace and career opportunities be like, what do I need to know to keep up with the times? Or, in a more cosmic vein, what does the future hold?

In an effort to answer these questions, publishers have settled each year into a series of industry meetings of general interest. Each has a unique theme, as noted below. They make the effort to bring together a cross section of publishers, associations, service providers and media professionals to connect with audiences ranging from first-time aspirants to seasoned managers and executives in every channel and of every level of responsibility.

Following is my own overview of the events with which I have become familiar through the years. I would say that a judicious choice of BEA or ALA and any one of the others whose focus comes closest to your own would provide a more than satisfying menu. If I had to attend only one: (a) I would pick BEA or ALA if my interest was in authors, reading, content and publishing as an enterprise, and (b) if my primary concerns were business development and operating management, I would choose any of the others from whose quality of attendee profiles and lists of presenters, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors I would expect to learn the most.

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), selected five books as finalists for the 2013 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, which honors the best nonfiction books written for young adults between Nov. 1, 2011 and Oct. 31, 2012. YALSA will name the 2013 award winner at the Youth Media Awards at 7:45 a.m. on Jan. 28, in Seattle during the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting.