We still have room for bloggers who want to join the 2010 Green Books Campaign!

The second Green Books Campaign is taking place in 5 weeks and we still have room for bloggers who are interested in joining and be part of a joint effort to promote books that are printed sustainably.

Here are the details:

Last November, as part of our efforts to promote books that are printed in an eco-friendly manner, we initiated a Green Books Campaign, where over 100 bloggers simultaneously published reviews of more than 100 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. This campaign also involved 40 publishers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

The campaign last year was very successful - more than 15,000 readers were exposed to the campaign and it received very positive feedback from publishers, bloggers and readers.

Therefore, we decided to run the campaign again this November, but this time with 200 bloggers! Also, this year we are also collaborating with Indigo Books and Music, the largest book retailer in Canada to increase the campaign's impact and reach.

Just like last year, the idea is to have 200 bloggers, who review books on regular basis, to simultaneously publish their book review of a "green book" of their choice on Wednesday, November 10 2010. Our goal also hasn't changed: To use the power of the internet and social media to promote "green" books and increase the awareness of both readers and publishers to the way books can be printed printed in an eco-friendly manner.

As I said, we still have room for bloggers who want to participate! So if you're interested, the list of participating books that is available at www.ecolibris.net/greenbookscampaign_list.pdf (Please note that it's recommended to increase the magnification of the web page up to 125% to see all the details).

The books will be assigned on first come first served basis. Once a book is taken, the name of the blog will appear next to it in the column 'assigned blog' (please check this column carefully to see which books are still available for review). So if you find a book that you would like to review on the campaign, just send us an email to info@ecolibris.net with your details.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) - good or bad? ITS is saying APP is good and actually Greenpeace is bad!

We had an interesting discussion going on here on the paper company APP and its operations in Indonesia.

We interviewed Ian Lifshitz, APP's Sustainability & Public Outreach Manager at Asia Pulp & Paper. Ian presented in the interview APP's point of view regarding the company's activities and the accusations against it. One of the issues discussed in the interview was a Greenpeace report "How Sinar Mas is pulping the planet", where Greenpeace claimed that APP "is destroying Indonesia’s rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands."

Afterwards we interviewed Rolf Skar, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace, who responded to the interview with Ian and presented Greenpeace's position in this case.

Now, we have a third party that is getting involved in this debate, defending APP and accusing Greenpeace in making false accusations against APP. This is International Trade Strategies Pty Ltd, trading as ITS Global Asia Pacific (ITS Global), which consults on dynamic international issues. According to their press release, ITS Global focuses on four core areas: international trade, environmental policy, development aid and strategy and communication. ITS skills are research, policy analysis and corporate affairs and communications strategies.

ITS is claiming to present a peer-reviewed audit. According to the press release, "the audit systematically analyzed 72 Greenpeace claims against APP that included more than 300 footnotes and approximately 100 references. The evidence shows that Greenpeace provided quotes that don’t exist; maps that show concessions that don’t exist; and used source material with high margins of error that was cited as absolute fact, said Alan Oxley, chief executive office of the Melbourne-based ITS Global."

The press release adds that "ITS Global commissioned two independent academic experts, one in forestry and economics and the other in agricultural science, to review Greenpeace’s claims. The audit shows that both describe the Greenpeace report as “highly misleading." No names attached.

You can see Alan Oxley, Managing Director of ITS and the Chairman of the Australian APEC Study Centre and Founder of WorldGrowth presenting ITS' audit in this video:



The audit itself is available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38102388/ITS-Global-Greenpeace-Audit-Report

So what do you think? Is this audit the crucial proof APP was looking for to show that they're right and Greenpeace is wrong? I don't know..One thing I do know is that this is not the final word in this debate. We'll try to have Rolf's response to this audit and see what Greenpeace has to say about these allegations against its report.

UPDATES:

1. Check out what Rehtt Buttler at Mongabay.com has to say about this audit ("Asia Pulp & Paper hires its PR firm to do a hit job on Greenpeace but comes up short"). Thanks to Peter Nowack (@printleadership) for the reference to this excellent article!

2. Here's Greenpeace's response to the audit -http://photos.mongabay.com/10/Greenpeace-Response-to-ITS-Global-Sept-2010.pdf

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Want some candies? Go to Strand!

If you needed another reason to go to Strand Bookstore, which is taking part in our bookstores program, we've got it for you and it's as sweet as it can get!

The New York Daily News reported yesterday (and thanks to mediabistro.com: GalleyCat for the link) that "customers are abuzz over a newly built Candyland on the shelves beneath the 40-foot-long checkout counter at the Union Square used-book mecca."

Customers, according to the article, can find there Old-fashioned sweets like $2.95 boxes of Gobstoppers, $1.95 chewable wax lips and three-for-35-cents Pixy Stix.

The reason is very simple - another way to generate income, especially from those who just browse the books in the store, as Fred Bass, Strand co-owner, explains on the article (he's the one standing on the photo above in front of the candy shelves).

Candies are of course just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to considering a visit in the store. Located in 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), this New York's independent landmark bookstore is one of most famous bookstores in the world. As mediabistro.com: GalleyCat reminds us Strand "boasts an 18-mile collection's worth of new, used, rare, and out-of-print books. Some of the rare titles include a first-edition of Lewis Baltz's Park City, a signed first-edition of Hunter S. Thompson's Kingdom of Fear, and a signed complete set of the Writings of Mark Twain: Definitive Edition. The last collector's item will set a buyer back $5,500."

And of course customers at Strand can plant a tree for every book they buy there and receive our sticker at the counter!

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

Green book of the week: Farmer Jane by Temra Costa (including an interview with the author)

If you were surprised by the fact that Michelle Obama took last Friday the spouses of 32 world leaders on a trip to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in New York, then you really shouldn't. Sustainable and local food is becoming an increasingly significant topic and the First Lady is one of its leading supporters.

And she is not the only woman involved in this growing industry. A growing number of women is dominating the field and 30 of them are profiled in the new book of Temra Costa, Farmer Jane, which is our green book of the week.

Here are some more details about this book:

Title: Farmer Jane: Women Changing The Way We Eat

What the book is about:
Farmer Jane profiles thirty women in the sustainable food industry, describing their agriculture and business models and illustrating the amazing changes they are making in how we connect with food. These advocates for creating a more holistic and nurturing food and agriculture system also answer questions on starting a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, how to get involved in policy at local and national levels, and how to address the different types of renewable energy and finance them.

Author: Temra Costa
Temra Costa is a nationally recognized sustainable food and farming advocate. She has written for numerous publications on hot-button issues such as Farm to School, eating locally, food safety, and how to create regional food systems. Her previous role as statewide director of California’s Buy Fresh Buy Local campaign, and other positions held with Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), worked to engage stakeholders in our food system, from farm to fridge.

Temra works, cooks, gardens and writes in the East Bay of California. She's a radio show co-host on Green 960 (www.thegreenmorning.com), works as a sustainable food systems consultant for various businesses, and speaks at events throughout the year.

Publisher: Gibbs Smith Publishers

This is a very interesting book on an extremely interesting issue and I really enjoyed reading these personal stories, so I decided to ask the author for an interview to learn more about it.

Hello, Temra. What was the reason you decided to write this book, focusing on women in the sustainable food world?

The timing was right! As women are taking more leadership roles in the food and farming sector as well as the business world in general.

How did you choose the women that you profile in the book?

I chose the women in Farmer Jane by sending out a call for nominations. I received responses from all over the country. It was really amazing.

From the 30 women you profile on your book, what story you felt mostly connected to on a personal level?

Almost all of the women talk about heart and community. Language that we're starting to hear more about - at least the community part.

You write in the introduction to the book that women "have long been underrepresented in the public sphere about the sheer amount of work they do, at home and outside of the home" - do you believe this is still the case when we have such prominent women figures leading what you describe as the "delicious revolution", from Michelle Obama and Alice Waters to Anna Lappe and Judy Wicks?

Women are still making less than men and will continue to be under acknowledged as long as the work that they do in the home, with family and with community is not valued.

Did you learn anything that surprised you while working on the book with regards to the role of women in the sustainable food industry?

Yeah, there are a lot of women ranchers out there! Second to women entering farming and food businesses because of the interest in local foods is women cattle ranchers that are succeeding their husbands. It's hard to imagine running a ranch without your partner but so many women are!

Why do you think we see so many women involved with urban farming?

It's small scale, serves and builds community, can be done in spare time, accesses volunteerism and has an immediate purpose.

Do you think that we'll continue to see so many women in key roles if and when the sustainable food industry will shift from a movement to an industry that is more focused on its business side?

This is a great question. I hope they are hired in the droves to do what they love and to make economic sense of it. Ultimately, it is our economic system that undervalues food and food producers. This needs to change so that people can make a right livelihood without "going corporate."

The sustainable food industry is still relatively small in size - do you believe we'll see it going mainstream in the near future?

Not as long as our FDA and USDA is being primarily run by the food companies that we need them to protect us from. Seriously, sustainable food, diversified foods, handmade foods are counter capitalistic models because they are time intensive and more hands on way of producing food.

Restructuring the food system will happen out of necessity due to water shortages and distribution challenges that will start to make local food a environmental and economic choice for businesses. Right now it's still riding a local food washing phase where there is a shift happening, but not to the scale that those marketing it to people require.

What you're working on these days? Any new book in the horizon?

Definitely! I've really loved talking about this subject and in traveling around and celebrating women of food in various communities around the country. I've got a few Farmer Jane sequel ideas that I'm working on at the moment.

Thank you, Temra! To learn more about Farmer Jane visit http://www.farmerjane.org/.

You're welcome to pick up Farmer Jane at your local, independently-owned bookstore. To find an independent store near you, click here.

In case you don't have an indie store close by, the book is also available on Amazon.

For wholesale orders, contact Gibbs Smith Publisher directly:
http://www.gibbs-smith.com/client/client_pages/sales.cfm

Yours, Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting   sustainable reading!

Will Barnes and Noble end up like Blockbuster? Bloggers are connecting the dots between the two

It's official: Blockbuster filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier today. I mentioned Blockbuster few weeks ago with regards to Barnes & Noble as I thought B&N should learn couple of lessons from the failure of Blockbuster (as well as from Tower Records before it).

Of course many on this day connected the dots between the two and not in a positive way for B&N. Michael Wolf asked on GigaOm Tech News 'Will All Brick & Mortar Media Sink Like Blockbuster?' and wondered if this is a sign for other brick and mortar retailers:

But are Blockbuster’s troubles a sign that all large brick and mortar retailers of content — be it music, movies and yes, even books — are eventually doomed? If you look back, signs point to yes.

Although he was more optimistic about B&N ("Barnes & Noble appears to be trying to forge a digital strategy much faster "), his conclusion was still somewhat pessimistic:

Still, I expect Barnes & Noble to see significant challenges in coming years, particularly since Amazon will likely dominate e-book sales, at least in the near term. As with Blockbuster, the combination of a nimble digital rival and costly brick and mortar real-estate weighing down the actual product ties a retailer down. And we all know that what happens when you when you tie a brick to something: it sinks.

Green Street Advisors analyst Cedrik Lachance was also pessimistic. He told Reuters the following:

The future of retailers of books appears to be going the direction of DVDs, video retailers or the music industry. It appears that books will follow in that direction but it will be more slowly.

The connection between Blockbuster and B&N wasn't the only lit one made today. Apparently there are some who also see here lessons to be learned for the whole publishing industry. Mike Cane, in his post 'Blockbuster's Lesson for Print Publishing', wrote:

Hey, print publishing! Do you really think you’re providing everything people want to read in eBook format? Does Harry Potter ring a bell? What about those backlist titles Andrew Wylie moved into eBooks without waiting for any of you? What about all those backlist and even current titles that readers have scanned and uploaded and are distributing for free?

What do you think? will B&N end up like Blockbuster or B&N is a different case? And what should book publishers take from it? Is there really here a lesson for them? We'll be happy to hear your thoughts!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

The bus you don't want to take (no matter how much you love books..)

Last July we had a post with a list of five places where it's better to use a Kindle than a physical book.

This video got me thinking we need to have another list of places where it's better not to have neither:



As reported on mediabistro.com: GalleyCat earlier today, the Portland, OR driver was caught reading his Kindle while he is slowly driving through traffic. The video by the way was filmed by a passenger, which makes me wonders why the passenger thought he wanted to film this bus driver first and not ask him to get the Kindle out of his site right away.

Anyway, I'm quite sure Amazon won't use this video to show the Kindle is better than the iPad, although they can claim that even bus drivers find it more convenient to use.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting   sustainable reading!

Will the iPad succeed to conquer the campus?

I heard an interesting report last Friday on NPR's excellent program 'All Things Considered' disucssing a question that I'm sure is occupying many people in the e-readers industry:

Is the iPad a game changer in the market of electronic textbooks?

As the report explained and as we all know, e-readers makes a lot of sense when it comes to students: traditional textbooks are expensive and heavy. Textbooks are also very wasteful from an environmental point of view, as not only they consume a lot of paper, but they also become irrelevant pretty quickly when new editions are published.

The Kindle was the first e-reader that tried to conquer the campuses, but without much success.Last year Treehugger reported on a failure of a pilot test at Princeton University in which 50 students were given a Kindle DX for three of their courses. The Daily Princeteonian explained why:

But though they acknowledged some benefits of the new technology, many students and faculty in the three courses said they found the Kindles disappointing and difficult to use. “I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,” said Aaron Horvath ’10, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. “It’s clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.”

Horvath said that using the Kindle has required completely changing the way he completes his coursework. “Much of my learning comes from a physical interaction with the text: bookmarks, highlights, page-tearing, sticky notes and other marks representing the importance of certain passages — not to mention margin notes, where most of my paper ideas come from and interaction with the material occurs,” he explained. “All these things have been lost, and if not lost they’re too slow to keep up with my thinking, and the ‘features’ have been rendered useless.”

The NPR report also mentioned the fact that Reed College in Portland, which ran this year a trial with the iPad, did the same thing last year with the Kindle. The feedback on the Kindle was very similar to the one from Princeton:

..Montgomery-Amo says they're hoping to have better luck with the iPad than they had with the Kindle.

"That went … I think horribly would be a good way of putting it," he says. "The problem is that the Kindle is less interactive than a piece of paper in that the paper, you can quickly write notes in the margin or star something or highlight something, and the Kindle was so slow at highlighting and making notes that the students stopped reading them as scholarly texts and started reading them like novels."

The result, according to Montgomery-Amo, is that his students didn't understand the material as well as they did when using a traditional textbook. To make matters worse, he says the Kindle proved unable to keep up with the class discussion — it would take half a minute to load a page and by then, the discussion would have lost its momentum.

This is bad news for Amazon, but might be good news for Apple. But is it? What did the students think about the iPad? Well, according to NPR's report, they were much happier with it:

Senior Michael Crane and junior Rebecca Traber say that even though they've only had their iPads for a few weeks, they've already been pleasantly surprised.

"I thought it would just kind of be a fun toy," Crane says. "It still is a fun toy, but it also … makes it really easy to read articles for class. In fact, I read pretty much all my articles for all my classes on this now. The instant boot time I think is really nice because if I have half an hour somewhere, I don't have to set up my laptop to get my articles out."

"I actually found it startlingly easy to annotate," Traber says. "You just swipe your finger and you highlight."

The question remains whether these positive experiences will be eventually transformed into actually buying the iPad. Well, not so fast. The students interviewed for the report bring up several issues that will get them to think twice before buying one: the price of the iPad, it's easier to do many functions on laptop (even just writing) and the keyboard (as one student said - "I don't like the keyboard at all.").

There's no doubt that we're heading towards a digital age of e-textbooks. It's just a matter of time. The bottom line is that it's a win-win especially for students. The only question is which e-reader will learn to adjust itself to meet students' special needs - it looks like the iPad is much better positioned for that right now, but I'm sure Amazon haven't said the last word.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!