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Alexandria, VA has moved up one level this year to first place in Amazon.com’s (@amazon) annual list of the Most Well-Read Cities in America. The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle (@AmazonKindle) format since June 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents. The Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:

1.   Alexandria, VA               11.  Pittsburgh, PA

2.   Cambridge, MA             12.  Knoxville, TN

3.   Berkeley, CA                  13.  Seattle, WA

4.   Ann Arbor, MI                  14.  Orlando, FL

5.   Boulder, CO                    15.  Columbia, SC

6.   Miami, FL                        16.  Bellevue, WA

7.   Arlington, VA                   17.  Cincinnati, OH

8.   Gainesville, FL                18.  St. Louis, MO

9.   Washington, DC             19.  Atlanta, GA

10. Salt Lake City, UT          20.  Richmond, VA

Read the news release in full.

See last year’s listing.

The above list differs from the one compiled by Central Connecticut State University (@CCSUToday) which names Washington, DC number one. Here’s the top ten list:

1.  Washington, DC               6.   Pittsburgh, PA

2.  Seattle, WA                      7.   Cincinnati, OH

3.  Minneapolis, MN              8.   St. Louis, MO

4.  Atlanta, GA                       9.   San Francisco, CA

5.  Boston, MA                     10. Denver, CO

Read this in full.

See last year's listing.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you reach readers.

And if you love books like we do, be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

At the 21st Annual Minitex ILL Conference in Minnesota, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet), Lee Rainie (@lrainie), gave the keynote presentation on "Learning in the Digital Age: Where Libraries Fit In."

He discussed the way people use ebook readers and tablet computers, and how those devices are fitting into users' digital lives. His presentation below describes how 3 revolutions in digital technology – in broadband, mobile connectivity, and social media – have created a new social operating system that he calls "networked individualism." And he used the Project's latest findings to help describe how librarians can serve the new educational needs of networked individuals.

How does this new way of learning among your consumers impact your publishing agenda? Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you sort it all out.

And be sure to bookmark, use daily, and tell others about the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

From book patrol (@bookpatrol) and HeraldNet comes this fun photo.

What else would you cover an electrical transformer that sits in front of the Library Place apartments, and is adjacent to the Everett (Washington) Public Library, then with a book sculpture?

Read about it.

If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

With the objective to promote reading, publishing, and the protection of intellectual property through copyright, UNESCO (@unescoNOW) has declared today World Book and Copyright Day.

23 April is a symbolic date for world literature, since 23 April 1616 was the date of death of Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. 23 April is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla, and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

This is why UNESCO chose this date to pay a worldwide tribute to books and their authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and to gain a renewed respect for the extraordinary contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.

The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia (Spain) where it has become a tradition to give a rose as a gift for each book purchased.

The year 2012 also marks the 80th anniversary of the Index Translationum, an international bibliography of translations. Search the online database.

Also see the World Digital Library (@WDLorg), the International Children’s Digital Library, the Internet Public Library (@theipl), the Library of Congress (@librarycongress), and the United States Copyright Office (@CopyrightOffice).

And be sure to bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, the online dashboard for publishing and marketing professionals.

The New York Times Media and Advertising (@NYTimesAd) section reports on a new public service campaign that seeks to help children “read by bringing together two collections of all-stars: a Who’s Who of literary characters and a lineup of well-known musicians.”

The twin gatherings of familiar faces and voices are meant to underline the theme of the campaign, “Book people unite.” The pro bono campaign is on behalf of Reading Is Fundamental (@RIFWEB), the nonprofit literacy organization founded in 1966.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market content for all ages.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In the Personal Tech section of The New York Times (@NYTpersonaltech), Alan Finder explains why you may or may not be able to digitally check-out your favorite books from your local library; and, if you find them, exactly how to do it.

Five of the six major publishers of trade books either refuse to make new ebooks available to libraries or have pulled back significantly over the last year on how easily or how often those books can be circulated. And complaints are rampant about lengthy waiting lists for best sellers and other popular ebooks from the publishers that are willing to sell to libraries....

These complexities may only increase with the announcement [April 11] that the Justice Department had filed a civil antitrust action against major book publishers and Apple, accusing the companies of colluding in 2010 to raise the prices of ebooks [on this subject, see the Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) article, “ABA Calls DoJ Ruling ‘Baffling’” and its other coverage]. In the meantime, though, if you can find the ebook you want in the library, it’s easy to check it out. You can browse a library’s digital holdings from the comfort of your living room at any time. You don’t have to go to the library to borrow a book, and even better, you don’t have to go there to return it. Books vanish from your device when they are due. And you can get access to a library’s ebooks from myriad devices, including e-readers, tablets, and smartphones.

You do have to learn one of the two basic systems. One is for Amazon’s Kindle, which works directly through Amazon.com and is the easier of the two. The other requires you to download software from the Adobe website, and works for other e-readers.

Read this in full.

For a historical view on the topic of libraries and ebooks, see Mathew Ingram’s (@mathewi) article on GigaOm (@gigaom), “Kindle Lending: Book Publishers Still Not Getting It.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you navigate 21st century digital publishing.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

According to a new report by the Pew Research Center’s (@pewresearch) Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet), 43% of Americans age 16 and older read long-form digital text such as ebooks and magazines, and many say they’re reading more because books and other long-form material are in a digital format.

One-fifth of American adults (21%) report they’ve read an ebook in the past year; this number increased following a gift-giving season that saw a spike in the ownership of both tablet computers and ebook reading devices such as the original Kindles and Nooks. In mid-December 2011, 17% of American adults had reported they read an ebook in the previous year; by February, 2012, the share increased to 21%.

The average reader of ebooks says she’s read 24 books (the mean number) in the past 12 months, compared with an average of 15 books by a non-ebook consumer. For device owners, those who own ebook readers say they’ve read an average of 24 books in the previous year (vs. 16 books by those who don’t own that device). They report having read a median of 12 books (vs. 7 books by those who do not own the device.

·         30% of those who read e-content say they now spend more time reading, and owners of tablets and ebook readers particularly stand out as reading more now.

·         The prevalence of ebook reading is markedly growing, but pbooks still dominate the world of book readers.

·         People prefer ebooks to pbooks when they want speedy access and portability, but print wins out when people are reading to children and sharing books with others.

·         Ebook reading happens across an array of devices, including smartphones.

·         Those who read ebooks are more likely to be under age 50, have some college education, and live in households earning more than $50,000.

·         11% of all Americans age 16 and older – or 14% of those who have read a book in the past year – consume audiobooks.

·         The majority of book readers prefer to buy rather than borrow.

·         61% of e-reading device owners said they purchased the most recent book they read, compared with 48% of all readers.

·         Owners of e-reading devices are more likely than all Americans 16 and older to get book recommendations from people they knew (81% vs. 64%) and bookstore staff (31% vs. 23%).

·         26% of those who had read a book in the past 12 months said that what they enjoyed most was learning, gaining knowledge, and discovering information.

Read this in full.

Also see Mike Shatzkin's (@MikeShatzkin) analysis in "A feast of data to interpret in new Pew survey of book readers about ebooks."

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan your strategy for ebook (as well as pbook) publishing.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In this New York Times (@nytimestech) article, technology writer David Streitfeld spotlights a wooden warehouse in Richmond, CA, where copies of printed books are being stored in the hope of preserving literature in case of a digital catastrophe.

Forty-foot shipping containers stacked two by two are stuffed with the most enduring, as well as some of the most forgettable, books of the era. Every week, 20,000 new volumes arrive, many of them donations from libraries and universities thrilled to unload material that has no place in the Internet Age....

“We want to collect one copy of every book,” said Brewster Kahle, who has spent $3 million to buy and operate this repository situated just north of San Francisco. “You can never tell what is going to paint the portrait of a culture.”

As society embraces all forms of digital entertainment, this latter-day Noah is looking the other way. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur who made his fortune selling a data-mining company to Amazon.com in 1999, Mr. Kahle founded and runs the Internet Archive (@internetarchive), a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving Web pages — 150 billion so far — and making texts more widely available.

But even though he started his archiving in the digital realm, he now wants to save physical texts, too.

Read this in full.

If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Author, speaker, and futurist Leonard Sweet (@lensweet) scouted this article in the World Future Society’s (@WorldFutureSoc) magazine, The Futurist (@Theyear2030) (March-April 2012): A Future of Fewer Words?: 5 Trends Shaping the Future of Language by Lawrence Baines (in an earlier article, Baines offered 6 manifestations of the retreat of the written word:

     1. The power of image-based media to influence thought and behavior;

     2. The tendency of newer technologies to obliterate aspects of older technologies;

     3. The current emphasis on school reform;

     4. The influences of advertising and marketing;

     5. The current state of books as repositories of the language; and

     6. The reconceptualization of the library.)

Members may log in and read online. Nonmembers may order the issue.

Sweet says,

I tried to say the same thing in chapter 9 of my upcoming book Viral ("Turning a Tin Ear to Poetry"), but Baines is more comprehensive and scientifically compelling. “As the world recedes from the written word and becomes inundated with multisensory stimuli (images, sound, touch, taste, and smell), the part of the human brain associated with language will regress. While visually astute and more aurally discriminating, the areas of the brain associated with language are also associated with critical thinking and analysis. So, as the corpus of language shrinks, the human capacity for complex thinking may shrink with it.”

“Losing polysyllabic words will mean a corresponding loss of eloquence and precision. Today, many of the most widely read texts emanate from blogs and social networking sites. Authors of these sites may be non-readers who have little knowledge of effective writing and may have never developed an ear for language.”

Read The Futurist article in full (membership required).

Read Baines’ earlier article (pdf).

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you navigate the changing communication scene to most effectively reach your consumers.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Futurist News tab.

In The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (Oxford University Press), Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College (@WheatonCollege), is sanguine about the future of reading and the book, and positively seductive when he urges us to read “for the plain old delight and interest of it, not because we can justify its place on the mental spreadsheet or accounting ledger.” Christianity Today’s (@CTmagazine) Books & Culture editor John Wilson talked with Jacobs about the distractions that beckon us, the virtues of the Kindle (and, by extension, similar devices), and the rewards of reading with concentrated attention. Here’s a portion of the interview:

There's a technology that we call the book, and many of us tend to assume that, well, everybody knows how to use books. Books are easy. It's the modern technologies that students need to be trained to use effectively. And I think, No, not really. A book is actually not that easy to know how to use well, especially for young people who haven't formed the habit of attending carefully to how they work.

So I tell my students, "Look, I want you to have the book in your hand. Take notes if you want to. I would prefer you to take notes in the book. Or if you don't want to write in books, get sticky notes, or do something. But I want you to be engaged with this technology." I want to be able to say, "Okay, put your finger there on page 36 and now let's go over to page 130." And I want to be able to go back and forth between the two. For many of them this is very unfamiliar. They're used to dealing with books in different ways. One of the really interesting things about getting them to work with a book is that it's a lot harder for them to get distracted, because I'm actually pushing them to make fuller use of this technology….

Read this in full.

If you’re a book lover like we are, be sure to bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) free online dashboard SomersaultNOW.