ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Texas Librarian’s Lawsuit For Wrongful Termination May Proceed, Federal Judge Rules

"U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman — the same judge who, in March 2023, ordered several books banned by Llano County officials returned to library shelves — denied most of the Texas county’s motion to dismiss librarian Suzette Baker’s wrongful termination suit." - Publishers Weekly

Good Investment? I Paid My Kid $100 To Read A Book

My daughter is a whip-smart kid, definitely smarter than I was at 12. But until I resorted to bribery, she’d never read an entire chapter book for pleasure. - The New York Times

Academic Publisher Wiley Sells AI Rights For $44 Million, Won’t Permit Authors To Opt Out

"Wiley has already earned $23 million from AI deals and confirmed … that it is set to make a further $21m this financial year. A spokesperson confirmed that Wiley authors are set to receive remuneration for the licensing of their work based on their 'contractual terms'." - The Bookseller (UK)

Academic Publishers Protest New Rule That Federally-Funded Research Must Be Freely Available

Although open-access advocates and library groups support the move, opponents argue the new policy will limit researchers’ ability to maintain control of their published work—and cut into the $19 billion academic publishing industry’s profit margins. - InsideHigherEd

Publishers File First Amendment Lawsuit Against Florida Over School Library Law

"Florida’s statute ... requires districts to set up a process for a parent or resident of the county to contest school and classroom library materials that they believe contain pornographic or sexual content. The country’s largest publishing houses say Florida has unleashed a wave of censorship." - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)

How We Communicate: Everything Is Story

Even the driest academic monograph or most threadbare opinion piece usually begins with some act of storytelling, whether we hear how a previous generation of scholars has mishandled the question at hand, or are treated to a columnist’s anecdote about what his taxi driver told him. - American Affairs

Bookshop.org’s New Plan To Buy And Resell Used Books

"The scheme, Bookloop by Bookshop.org, allows customers to trade books they own for credit to use on the website. Readers can register books through the online valuation system and then either leave them at a DPD drop-off point or have them picked up from home." - The Guardian

AI Open Competition “Reads” Long-Baffling Scrolls From Pompeii

Since March 2023, more than 1,000 teams have entered this competition. In October 2023, the first letters and lines of Greek text were detected, and in February 2024, the first winners of the prize money. Their AI model spectacularly revealed parts of 15 columns from the innermost part of one of the scrolls. - The Conversation

Evergreen Question: Just What, Exactly, Is Poetry?

Poetry has drastically changed after World War Ⅱ; it’s parted from art—including poems, waka, haiku, and novels written until around the end of the War—that adheres to a certain purposive style and “shape.” - Words Without Borders

Chaucer, The Master Amalgamator (And Inveterate Thief)

Not only did he take characters and stories from all walks of 14th-century English life, he borrowed phrases from Latin, French, and Italian; took his approach to writing in vernacular from Dante; and swiped narratives from Ovid and Bocaccio. He even stole the Chaucerian stanza itself: it's actually Machaut's rime royal. - Poetry Foundation

Library-Book-Banning Mania Has Arrived In Australia

Electors in Albany, Western Australia (about 4½ hours south of Perth) voted to remove two sex education titles, one aimed at teens, from public library shelves in what the local LGBTIQA+ advocacy group called a "moral panic" and an attempt to conflate sexual minorities with child grooming. - ABC (Australia)

How To Write A Headline Readers Want To Click On? Keep It Simple, Finds Study

"Our research … shows that simple headlines significantly increase article engagement and clicks compared with headlines that use complex language. … But importantly, we found that those who actually write headlines — journalists themselves — did not." - Nieman Lab

In War, Poetry Has Become Very Popular In Ukraine

Over the past two years, poets have emerged as some of the nation’s most popular voices, their verse capturing the raw emotions of the conflict and resonating deeply with a war-weary population. Sales of poetry books have soared. - The New York Times

Books Are Ideas, Yes. But I Need To Hold Them

"I will always prefer a book I can hold in my hand, the kind that smells of paper and glue, the kind whose unfolding I control, no button or touchscreen involved, by flipping backward and forward with pages ruffling between my fingers. The physicality of it pleases me." - The New York Times

Rapping About Adverbs Made This Teacher Go Viral

“Under the name of his alter ego, MC Grammar, Mitchell has become a wildly popular performer whose rhymes have made reading and grammar all the rage among young people across Britain.” - The New York Times

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