This via USAToday:

When you walk through the doors of Borders’ (BGP) new concept store, the place feels familiar. As with any big-box bookstore, you’ll find a coffee shop over here and some strategically placed leather chairs over there. And, of course, lots of books.

But follow the table of books snaking off to the right, and you’ll come face-to-face with Borders’ newest retail strategy: a digital center where you can download music or books, burn CDs, research family histories, print pictures and order leather-bound books crammed with family photos — with help from clerks who know how to do those sorts of things and won’t embarrass you if you don’t.

Now - I don’t fault Borders for trying something new - but why am I going to go to Borders to download content when I can do it from home on my couch in my PJs? I guess it would be something for me to do on those occasions that my husband drags me out to the bookstore to look at the latest RPG release - but I’ll be interested to see how successful this really is.

Technorati Tags: borders bookstore

I mentioned almost a year ago that Borders was going to be splitting from Amazon.com - now I find a link to Borders beta via MoMB.

Technorati Tags: Borders bookstore

It’s a little late now, but a friend of mine just reminded me about Etsy:

Etsy is an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.

Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.

My friend says (and I quote):

etsy…is my internet mecca - for reals. Each individual crafter/artist gets their own shop and you can talk to them and the goods are high quality and the artists care so much about what they’re selling. I’ve bought 2 things off it for christmas and the sellers are lovely and wrapped everything so nice.

Also - for you geeky ladies out there (and guys I guess) there are these HTML earrings that I found last year - they’re sold out - but who knows they may be back next year.

Looking for that perfect gift for the librarian in your family? I want this! It goes perfect with my book oriented desk-organizer.

Leather tissue boxes prove you can’t tell a book by its cover-look like a stack of valuable first editions! Have handcrafted leather “bindings” over wood, gold “pages,” hand-painted gold accents. Easy to refill-lift hinged lid. Boutique tissue box, 6 1/4″ x 6 1/2″H.

Just perfect for any librarian’s desk!

Did you know this? I didn’t! Thanks to Anne over at Jenkins Law Library I learned how to edit my Amazon wishlist in a compact way - this may or may not be a new feature.

First choose to view compact and then you can check the items you want to delete all in one swoop - you can also make other mass edits this way instead of paging through your wish list. Very handy.

Technorati Tags: shopping, amazon

RitzCamera has a one day deal where you can get 3 1GB Flash Drives for $29.99 (plus $6.95 s/h). Sounds like a neat stocking stuff idea for those geeks in your family … or maybe just for anyone in your family!

I hate standing behind the podium when I present - mostly becuase I’m so short I look like a floating head - or a kid playing dress up. Anyway, I use this nifty tool for my presentations - and now it’s on sale if you want one.

Last night I was updating my wish list on Amazon and I know that the site didn’t look like it does this morning.

In the top right they invite us to see what’s new:

Looks prettly slick - guess I’ll need to poke around some and see if it’s more usable - since re-designs are all about improving usability in my book!

[update]If you don’t see the new design it’s because things are still in transition. From the FAQ:

Why do I see the new design on my home computer but not at work?

We’re still in our testing phase, and you may not see the new design all the time.

[/update]

Technorati Tags: amazon

That’s right - for today only - get a sale on your Ebay fees - I’m headed home to pull out that pile I’ve been meaning to list!! This $.20 price applies to all auctions no matter what your starting bid!

When is it? One day only, starting Tuesday, April 24, 2007 between 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second on Tuesday, April 24, 2007) and ending that same day at 23:59:59 PT(11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

[via Techbargains]

Technorati Tags: ebay

I was just introduced to a book (cd, dvd, game) price comparison site. Nothing new there - but BookPrice.com also lets you subscribe via RSS to your search results - something all sites with search should let you do!

Looking for a Harry Potter set to get caught up before the new book? Well click on the RSS Price Watcher link in the right and keep an eye out for a great deal!

In a bit of books business news, Borders is dropping Amazon.com in favor of their own e-commerce site. I’m not sure how I feel about this - I don’t usually shop on Borders.com because Amazon has better deals (and I’m an associate) - but I am curious to see what Borders comes up with to top its online competition.

The shocker for me - I hadn’t realized that it had been 7 years that Borders.com & Amazon.com were tied together! For some reason I thought it had been less time.

This info was found via Business 2.0 and Slashdot.

Technorati Tags: borders.com, borders, amazon, amazon.com

I know there are a ton of different geeky options out there, but my husband just sent me this geeky T-shirt and I wanted to share it with you all.

Bookpool is having an O’Reilly sale - get your computer books cheap while the sale lasts. I just placed an order for 3 - I had to cut back from the 7 I had in my cart

I have found some pretty neat gift ideas I want to share with you all.

• Bibliochase
  The Bibliochaise is an armchairlibrary for who likes to be immersed in deep reading. It contains 5 linear metres of books and thanks to a special fitting structure is easily disassembled.
• Kiss Me I’m A Librarian T-Shirt
  Or any of the other great gift ideas at TeaseCatalog
• Men of TLA Calendar
  I mentioned this earlier - but it deserves to be repeated.
• Librarian’s Rock T-Shirt
  Or any of the other Cafe Press gifts.

And guys who love to shop

I just read on Techcrunch about the Likeness search - Like.com - from Riya. The reason I say this is for girls - well - look at the example that Techcrunch uses. You no longer have to scour the web to find that accessory you’ve been dying for - you can now search for it.

When I was looking for my wedding dress, I had seen one on an actor in a TV show that I loved - I spent forever looking for a dress to match the picture I had - that’s going to my “When I was young” story (you know - like your grandparents who says they walked to school barefoot, up hill, in the snow )

Anyway, pretty neat toy - I’m off to play.

I just read about Missing-Auctions on Library Stuff.

Every day thousands of items are listed on auction sites around the world containing spelling mistakes such as ‘comuter’, ‘coomputer’ or ‘c0mputer’ instead of ‘computer’. Because these items don’t appear in the regular search results less people bid on them so they sell for a lot less. … Now you can easily find these mis-spelled auctions and grab yourself a bargain!

Fun! And way handy!

Last week I wrote about Book Sale Scout and then I found out about Book Sale Finder. Both are pretty handy. Personally, I like that Book Sale Scout better it lets you search for sales - it also lets you list your sales for free.

I still think that both need some serious design help. The ads are overwhelming on Book Sale Finder and on Book Sale Scout they don’t seem to know how to keep their ads within the borders of their page.

What this means? It means if you’re shopping for books go ahead and check both sites - if you’re looking for a place to advertise your book sale - go with Book Sale Scout.

[update] I just got an email correcting me - apparently Book Sale Finder offers free ads to non-profits - always has - I just didn’t find that fact when browsing the site. Sorry about that. [/update]

After my post about the Library Geeks podcast I thought about it and I really should buy a headset - so I want recommendations. What ones are you using and which do you like? I’ve heard some podcast interviews where I have to fast forward through a specific speaker because they’re so darn quiet - I don’t want to be that person

I got one recommendation from someone at work today for the Sennheiser PC150 Noise Cancelling PC Headset - but I want to hear from more people.

There is a new site I just read about on ResourceShelf - Book Sale Scout. On first look I didn’t really want to explore much further - the design is severely lacking (a point that I emailed to the owners) - but I’m glad I did browse on. Using this service, you can find bookstores are libraries in your areas! What a great way to support libraries and find cheap books.

I have been trying to buy my textbooks for classes for the last 3 weeks, but Drexel does not make it easy - in fact they make it down-right difficult. First of all they “require” you to buy your books from their bookstore - how? Well you search for your class and section (using the most idiotic interface ever) and then you see the required texts - but you don’t see all of the info you need. You see the last name of the author and an abbreviated title. No edition, No ISBN, nothing that will make it easy to find the book elsewhere.

So I search the library to see what books they have for those classes - I find the ISBNs and email the professors to find out what the right ISBN is. One professor replies within minutes the others I wait for - finally I get an answer from another professor (still no word from the last - and I got a read-receipt for the email I sent). Now I have 2 definite ISBNs and 1 possible ISBN. I search online - I do Ebay, Amazon, ABE, Half, and BigWords. One of the books I need is supposed to have a CD with it - none of the above-mentioned sites says that there is a CD with it. The book in question is listed for $190 at the school bookstore and $60 on ABE - where would you buy it???

Anyway, I’m waiting to hear back from some sellers about the CD, all the while getting more and more frustrated that this information was not made clear in the first place!!

[update] Just got an email back from the instructor - CD is not necessary - so I’m off to buy my books. Saving myself over $100 by not shopping in the bookstore! [/update]

You’ve heard of webcasting, podcasting - and a few others - but have you heard of Shopcasting? I just learn about a new site called ThisNext from the Business 2.0 Blog.

ThisNext is a shopcasting network where you can recommend, share and discover great products.

But what is Shopcasting?

It's a product playlist — a way to recommend to other people things that make life better. It's a way to syndicate your taste, your voice. Shopcasting is a mashed up word that combines shopping and broadcasting.

So there you go - if you’re a shopaholic this is a necessary addition to your blog sidebar.

I know that there are other similar services out there - but this is the only one I’ve played with. GiftHat lets you create and share a wishlist - the best thing is that you can import your Amazon wishlist right into their database. There are a few features I’d like to see.

1. They show the list price instead of the Amazon price (which is always less).
2. I’d like to be able to enter in my amazon associates tag - make a little money

Overall, a pretty nifty tool. [Thanks TipMonkies for pointing it out]

How cool is this? I did a search for Sunday Circulars because I want to go out and buy another bookshelf. I visited Target’s site and right away an RSS button jumped out at me on the left side of the page. See here.

You can get the Sunday specials delivered to your aggregator! RSS is everywhere - I love it!