“At the recent ALA Midwinter meeting in Philadelphia, Macmillan CEO John Sargent told librarians that he would come back in March with potential alternatives to the publisher’s controversial library e-book embargo. And this week, Macmillan made good on Sargent’s statement, with an email to a select group of librarians seeking feedback on three proposals that could inform new e-book license terms for public libraries.” – Publishers Weekly
Tag: 03.06.20
A Takeover, And A Crisis, At France’s Best-Known Journal Of Filmmaking
Cahiers du Cinéma, which launched the French New Wave and gave the world the concept of the auteur, was purchased last month by a consortium that includes some of France’s top movie producers. The new owners, hoping to make the studious, and studiously independent, Cahiers more “chic” and “central,” want to invite directors to write for it and to launch a partnership with the Cannes Festival. The entire editorial staff has resigned. – The New Yorker
What David Hallberg Wants To Do At, And With, The Australian Ballet
“The dancing is already at a very high standard, the repertoire is solid and the audience base is dedicated. But I want to add certain things to the repertoire that haven’t yet been seen in Australia. … I also want to bring the company around the world. … And I want to dive into the company’s responsibility to the greater Australian community.” – Dance Magazine
Traditional University Degrees No Longer Cut It. Lifelong Learning Needs A Rethink
Recent advances in computational methods and data science push us into rethinking science and engineering. Computers increasingly become principal actors in leveraging data to formulate questions, which requires radically new ways of reasoning. Therefore, a new discipline blending computer science, programming, statistics and machine learning should be added to the traditional foundational topics of mathematics and physics. These three pillars would allow you to keep learning complex technical subjects all your life because numeracy is the foundation upon which everything else is eventually built. – Aeon
How Academe’s Adjunct Addiction Changed Education
“The halls of academe are known to be hospitable to people with radical views on power relationships between capital and labor, but colleges themselves are often merciless actors in the labor market. Many adjuncts earn only a few thousand dollars per course, with no health insurance or retirement benefits. Twenty-five percent of part-time faculty receive some form of public assistance. Some adjunct postings don’t require doctorates.” – The New York Times
Oxford Dictionaries Scour To Remove Sexist Language
After a huge project that involved picking over tens of thousands of example sentences, Oxford University Press (OUP) has been quietly replacing hundreds of those that “unnecessarily perpetuate sexist stereotypes” in Oxford Dictionaries, the dictionary source licensed by Apple and Google. Now the example given for anatomy is “people should never be reduced to their anatomies” – and the “lady customers” have been consigned to the past. – The Guardian
Movie Industry Has Lost $5 Billion In Coronavirus Closures
Widespread cinema closures across China, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan and South Korea have already done drastic damage to the global box office, with one consulting firm suggesting that the loss during China’s new year holiday alone amounts to around $1bn. – The Guardian
After Fourteen Years Of Restoration Work, Egypt Reopens One Of Its Oldest Pyramids
The Djoser pyramid (built under the famous ancient architect Imhotep) was damaged in an earthquake in the 1990s, but restoration didn’t begin until the early 2000s. Interrupted by the “Arab Spring” and the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the repairs also hit a crisis when Egyptian media revealed that the original façade was damaged and altered during renovation work. – France 24
Apparently, Pandemic Narratives Are Soothing For Humans Right Now
One theory about why: “Pandemic fiction is about how people behave in response to acute, sudden-onset helplessness. When we’re confronted with that helplessness in real life, watching some version of it — any version of it, and ideally one where at least some people survive — is comforting. It’s a model for how we could respond.” – Vulture
The Leipzig Book Fair Has Been Canceled, So They’re Announcing The Book Prize On The Radio
Guess that’s “appropriate social distance.” (For more about how hard the book fair cancellation is hitting Germany’s, and the world’s, book industry, click this link.) – Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich)