Penguin Random House wants you to get off your phone and read a book for once (marketingbrew.com)

In late 2010, I was thinking quite a bit about book use in research libraries. The conventional wisdom was that “no one uses print books anymore” in libraries like mine, and indeed annual data provided by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) showed a pretty clear decline in book circulations: between 1991 and 2008 (the most recent data available at that time), the number of initial circulations in ARL libraries had fallen by over a quarter. And when I ventured into the book stacks in my own library I usually found them spookily deserted. But I was haunted by a passing comment a colleague had made to me a few years earlier, noting that the conclusions we draw from library usage data can easily be confounded by changes in the library’s user population. It occurred to me that if we really want to understand what’s happening with regard to library patrons and printed books, we need to take into account the changing nature of our patron base. And the simplest and most consistent change in that population is growth over time: university enrollment tends to grow from year to year. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Enthusiast media company Active Interest Media (AIM) has acquired Taunton Press, a consumer media and book business. Terms were not disclosed. The purchase of Newtown, CT-based Taunton doubles AIM’s reach in the gardening, woodworking and homebuilding sectors, the company states. “While the symmetry of many of our core markets is obvious; woodworking, gardening, and homebuilding; there are many other similarities,” notes Andrew Clurman, president and CEO of AIM. For one, both firms have been “aggressively pursuing the creation of new digital products, memberships, and online learning to better serve their audiences," Clurman adds. For another, the two companies share “a dedication to producing high-quality information, and inspiring enthusiasts for hands-on living,” says Andrea Roman, board chair of Taunton Press.

The American Catalog Mailers Association, Inc. filed a lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Taxation, seeking to declare unconstitutional a new state law that improperly expands the Department's jurisdiction beyond the state's borders in clear violation of existing U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The ACMA intends to demonstrate that Ohio’s software “cookie” nexus standard for sales/use tax is in direct contravention of the extraterritorial limits on state tax authority under Quill v. North Dakota. The state is claiming that the mere presence of electrons placed on an Ohio computer pierces the longstanding "physical presence" test under Quill and subjects remote sellers to sales tax collection and other compliance obligations. “This is an egregious assault on out of state companies seeking to sell to Ohio residents and effectively presents a barrier to interstate commerce that cannot be left unchallenged,” said ACMA President Hamilton Davison. “We have no doubt the Ohio judiciary, in light of the well-established national precedent created by the highest court in the land, will overturn this illegal new law.” ACMA has filed this action just before the law’s January 1, 2018 effective date. Click Read More below for additional information.