Kicking and screaming into the 21st century – book catalogs
By Paul Biba
This is an excerpt from a article on E-Reads today:
The other day we received our first e-catalog from a publisher and we not only lived to tell the tale, we actually liked it. Though the digital revolution in the book industry has happily reached a tipping point, a lot of grouchy twentieth century old timers have stubbornly drawn the line at emailed catalogs. Here’s what I recently muttered on the subject:
Another capital-intensive practice on the chopping block for a number of publishers is paper catalogues, and though we’re all trying to enter the digital age unflinchingly, the disappearance of catalogues will be more wrenching than many other uprootings. Catalogues have long been the most familiar tool for introducing the bookstore trade to publishers’ front- and backlists. They are not merely informational and often beautiful but they are a publisher’s face to the world, its very identity. Even the spelling of “catalogue”, despite Microsoft spellcheck’s insistence on dropping the “ue”, bespeaks a stubborn and beloved tradition. …
May 19th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
My favorite part is this:
In fact, substitute almost any print product for the word “catalog”, and I think you’ve got the idea.