On Sunday, November 17th, the Miami Book Fair International opened for the 30th year. The event is presented and produced by The Center for Theatre and Literature at Miami Dade College. Miami Dade is the largest of the Florida colleges and prides itself on its diversity. The event is a huge fair for book lovers, who travel from all over the country to see more than 500 authors give presentations, talk to fans and sign books. The event occurs in downtown Miami where a lot of people can escape the cold winter temperatures and enjoy the beautiful weather and beaches. It’s one of the most successful and largest book fairs in the entire country and draws in all different types of people. This is because new book categories are always being added and more authors want to see their fans in person. [Read more…]

Orland Park Public Library, which is located in a suburb in Chicago, is now changing its policies for accessing certain types of material. It will now make it mandatory for adults to show identification if they would like to access the adult section of the library, which is where they can surf the web and look at any legal material, including pornography. This is a change from the previous policy, which only required users to sign in using their library card information, which could easily have been faked. They feel that this will make the library a safer place while still allowing visitors to enjoy their First Amendment rights to free speech. [Read more…]

This month Amazon announced that their chief of publishing Larry Kirshbaum would be resigning. The move is a further indication that Amazon is toning down its plans to become a full scale publisher. The retreat from publishing appears to be a result of black listing of author’s signed with Amazon by brick and mortar book retailers. Kirshbaum’s own resignation is clouded by recent allegations of sexual assault. [Read more…]