Over a fifth of North Yorkshire county council's library staff are set to lose their jobs as part of plans to hand branches over to community groups to run, according to a report in the Yorkshire Post.
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Australia’s publishers have moved to compromise in the battle to protect their industry from parallel importing.
According to a report from Inside Retail, the Book Industry Strategy Group (BISG) has made a recommendation to industry minister Kim Carr that the timetable for the retention of territorial copyright be reduced from 30/90 to 14/14 days, effectively giving local publishers just a two-week window of protection for new releases.
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The third day of Frankfurt has seen a wealth of new deals, including "frenzied" bidding for Egmont's BZRK series, and a second Led Zeppelin title.
Michael Grant’s new young adult thriller series BZRK has hit the half a million pound mark in foreign rights sales, selling into five territories: France, Germany, Holland, Norway and the US.
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Jeremy Robson has secured world rights to a book that features the previously unpublished notebooks of Bram Stoker as one of Robson's launch titles for his new imprint at Biteback.
Robson bought the rights directly from Stoker's great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker, and Dracula scholar Dr Elizabeth Miller. The Lost Journals of Bram Stoker is provisionally scheduled for publication by the Robson Press next spring.
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Amazon has begun rolling out its Appstore worldwide, with a selection of customers across western Europe, India and Australia getting early access.
The store offers apps for Android-enabled devices, such as Samsung or HTC smartphones.
According to Engadget, the site's dedicated website remains on Amazon.com but access for international customers has begun to be rolled out.
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Surrey council now plans to hand 19 libraries over to community management, or close them, according to local news site Your Local Guardian.
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Entertainment company Chorion, owner of characters such as Mr Men, Noddy and those created by Beatrix Potter, faces a reported possible administration this week.
The Sunday Times reports lenders to the company are preparing to force the business into administration, with Deloitte lined up to handle it, after attempts to find fresh funds failed and the Labour peer Lord Alli resigned as chairman.
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Several US law firms have now filed lawsuits against Apple and major US publishers alleging what one described as a "horizontal conspiracy" to fix and increase the price of e-books in the US. One firm also now moved for the lawsuits to be heard under one judge either in California, where two of the suits have been registered, or Manhattan, where three have been filed.
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Amazon.com has launched a free app enabling students to trade used textbooks, while Barnes & Noble has expanded sales of its Nook e-reader to more than 630 of its college bookstores.
Amazon Student, an application for iPhone and iPod touch devices, allows users to trade their old textbooks, plus videos, games and other products, in return for Amazon giftcards. The app offers instant price checks, whereby users will be able to scan barcodes from textbooks in a bookstore, to compare prices.
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The newspapers have offered differing reactions to the Man Booker longlist announcement, made yesterday, with most hailing bookies' favourite Alan Hollinghurst, and the Daily Telegraph detecting a "more populist" selection.
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Telegraph Media Group has been ordered to pay £65,000 in damages after losing a high court case for libel and malicious falsehood over a Lynn Barber book review published in the Telegraph.
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The final death knell for Borders US sounded yesterday as the company said its remaining 399 stores would begin winding down in three days' time.
No bidders came forward to buy the 40-year-old American bookselling chain, so the company cancelled a bankruptcy auction planned for today (19th July).
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Borders could cease to exist by the end of next week although the retailer's lawyer said it has received other inquiries that could result in a takeover.
On Wednesday a committee of unsecured creditors rejected a takeover proposal by private equity firm Najafi Companies. They argued a court-supervised liquidation sale would be more beneficial to them.
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The Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) is to ask the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to investigate after Pearson reached a deal to acquire the REDgroup online businesses.
Pearson said yesterday (4th July) it had liaised with REDgroup administrators Ferrier Hodgson to acquire the failed book chain's Borders and Angus & Robertson websites from 28th July, including their online and app-based bookstores.
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Amazon.com has reached an agreement to acquire The Book Depository, the fast-growing online retailer founded by Andrew Crawford in 2004.
Greg Greeley, Amazon's vice president of European Retail, said: "Customers in more than 100 countries enjoy The Book Depository's vast selection, convenient delivery and free shipping. The Book Depository is very focused on serving its customers around the world, and we look forward to welcoming them to the Amazon family."
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Seven Oxfordshire libraries due to lose all funding are to be saved under new proposals put forward by the county council.
Summertown, Headington, Littlemore, Blackbird Leys, Neithrop, Berinsfield and Botley libraries will all be kept open under the new scheme.
The fresh proposals represent a significant concession after the council's original plan to cut the funding of 20 of the county's 43 libraries, which resulted in vocal protest from campaigners including author Philip Pullman.
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Football star George Best's widow, Alex Best, has made a legal claim against Bloomsbury surrounding the veracity of journalist Celia Walden's book, Babysitting George.
The Observer reports Best's former mistress, Gina Devivo, was supporting Alex Best to claim "that a new book about the period leading up to his [George Best's] death is largely fiction".
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Australian bookshop chains Borders and Angus & Robertson may have to close if buyers cannot be found, administrators have revealed.
According to a statement from Ferrier and Hodgson, the firm is "urgently seeking offers from potential buyers of all or part of the Angus & Robertson or Borders networks", the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
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Kobo has unveiled a new touchscreen version of its e-book reader at Book Expo America, which it is aiming at less digitally savvy book buyers.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Kobo chief executive Michael Serbinis described the e-book market as David versus the Goliaths of Apple and Amazon.
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Oxfordshire council has confirmed it will not withdraw funding from libraries at the end of this year, according to a report in the Oxford Mail.
Under plans unveiled in 2010, 20 libraries in the county were due to lose all funding at the end of December. While a fresh consultation has now begun, there had hitherto been no firm undertaking that the budget cuts would not still be going ahead.
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The takeover of Waterstone's by Alexander Mamut is cause for celebration among the publishing industry, Faber c.e.o. Stephen Page has said.
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