Newsletter: November 2008

The protracted argument over whether or not to print recommended age groups on the back of children's books continues to rage here in the UK. Now librarians have weighed in. Quoted in The Guardian, Tricia Adams, chair of the youth libraries group at CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals), says 'Anything that puts a barrier between a child and a book is a problem. The issue for me is that when a child takes [an age banded book] out of a library they are then badged by their peers, who'll be saying "that's for seven-year-olds, and you're ten".' Many librarians have signed up to the campaign against age-banding led by writer Philip Pullman.

Librarians have got more to worry about though, as it's been revealed that library spending on books has fallen for the third year in a row. Down 1% on last year, the £76.8 million spent on books up to March 2008 represents just 8.7% of libraries overall expenditure.

Meanwhile, after two years of wrangling in the courts, Google has announced that it's reached an agreement over its plans to sell books over the internet. The deal has been likened to publishing answer to iTunes. In return for being able to make writers' work available on the web, the company will ay $125 million to publishers and writers. The Times reports that part of the deal will mean 'Google will set up a non-profit group called the Book Rights Registry to resolve outstanding claims by authors and publishers and cover legal fees from class-action lawsuits against Google.'

 Photo: John Foley / Opale

Back in the UK, and Patrick Gale (above)'s novel Notes From an Exhibition has been voted Book of the Year by the customers of independent bookshops. Robert Muchamore's The Sheepwalker was named best children's book.

The collections shortlisted for this year's TS Eliot Prize for poetry are: Europa by Moniza Alvi, The Glass Swarm by Peter Bennet, For All We Know by Ciaran Carson, Full Volume by Robert Crawford, Life Under Water by Maura Dooley, Theories and Apparitions by Mark Doty, Nigh-No-Place by Jen Hadfield, The Lost Leader by Mick Imlah, Hide Now by Glyn Maxwell, and Yellow Studio by Stephen Romer. The £15,000 prize will be awarded in January.

The British Library has announced that it's paid £500,000 for an archive of letters, drafts and notebooks belonging to poet Ted Hughes. The material now 'saved for the nation' will be fully accessible by the end of next year. 

And finally, if you enjoy visiting literary homes but have always wanted to spend more time in a writer's rooms than the guided tour alone will allow, you may be interested to hear that poet Dylan Thomas's boyhood home in Swansea has undergone a facelift. Now restored to how it might have looked in 1914, the year of the poet's birth, number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (marked with a plaque, above) is now available as a 'self catering holiday experience'. Only three hundred people a year will get the chance to stay in the house, which boasts a gramophone and a copy of a 1914 newspaper - but no TV, radio or phone.

Susan Tranter

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