Category: today’s top story

“After 244 years reference book firm Encyclopaedia Britannica has decided to stop publishing its famous and weighty 32-volume print edition.”

“The $150 million gallery officially opens May 19, and tickets have been moving briskly to Barnes members since Feb. 1. … In March 2009, membership totaled 390; today, there are about 15,000 members.”

“The idea makes me giggle that this is the Dark Ages for movie criticism and its finest practitioners have retreated to the monasteries of academe. Countless times during my career, criticism has been declared dead only to pop up its furry groundhog head and give frisky proof to the contrary.”

“Last year, his works sold at auction for a total of $200 million, according to auction tracker Artnet – more than any other living artist and topping last year’s auction totals for Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti and Mark Rothko combined.”

“When sales of non-fiction and children’s books are included, the total number of books sold in the UK fell by 4.7 million to 25 million over the eight week period, according to Nielsen BookScan, which compiles data from across the high street. The decline in sales of printed books – as opposed to electronic books – means that bookshops have taken £28 million less through their tills than they did a year ago, raising further questions over whether traditional book retailers have a future on the high street.”

“A German convicted for his role in an art forgery scandal has claimed to have faked works by “about 50″ different artists over the course of his career. Demand was so high, said Wolfgang Beltracchi, that he could have found buyers for up to 2,000 bogus pieces, had he been inclined to paint them.”

“While the glitzy Goliaths populating Las Vegas Boulevard lure out-of-towners, this downtown property” – the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, built on the site of an old railroad switchyard – will cater to locals, “many of whom say they have yearned for this for decades.”

Brewster Kahle, who’s expanding his archive to about 10 million books (and films): “We must keep the past even as we’re inventing a new future,” he said. “If the Library of Alexandria had made a copy of every book and sent it to India or China, we’d have the other works of Aristotle, the other plays of Euripides. One copy in one institution is not good enough.”

“Titian’s masterpiece Diana and Callisto has been secured for Britain after the National Gallery stumped up £25m from its reserves and the painting’s owner dropped the asking price by £5m … It now joins its pair, Diana and Actaeon, in the shared ownership of the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland.”