Noam Chomsky

By definition, libraries have always served as a “threat” to publishers—why pay for it, when you can get it for free at your local library? And yet, libraries and publishers have existed side-by-side. I think a point that gets missed is that when you give people an opportunity to open their minds up, to explore and dream you create additional demand.

André Schiffrin, 76, a leading figure in the New York book publishing world, quit Pantheon in 1990 to establish a not-for-profit independent publishing house, The New Press, explaining that economic trends prevented him from publishing serious books.

Schiffrin describes the crisis in Western publishing in his 2011 book, The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read. In 2010, in Words and Money, he commented on the role of conglomerates in the newspaper and film business.

By definition, libraries have always served as a “threat” to publishers—why pay for it, when you can get it for free at your local library? And yet, libraries and publishers have existed side-by-side. I think a point that gets missed is that when you give people an opportunity to open their minds up, to explore and dream you create additional demand.

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