Rick Vanzura is resigning as executive v-p, emerging business and technology, and chief strategy officer, at Borders Group. His position is being eliminated, and he will leave the company in September when the new chief information officer, Susan Harwood, begins.
Borders CEO George Jones said in a statement that Vanzura had "a key role in development of our strategic plan for the future, the launching of our e-business and the development of Paperchase. Now that the strategic plan is set and its initiatives are being executed within the individual business units, Rick and I agree that this is a logical time for him to transition away from his strategic duties."
Vanzura was an executive at Borders between 1994 and 1999, then after stints at Lifemasters and General Motors, returned to the company in 2003 as president of Waldenbooks.
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"Wild Thing" unleashed at last. In January, Larry Portzline, founder of Bookstore Tourism, bid nearly $3,000 for the opportunity to sing "Wild Thing" with the Rock Bottom Remainders during BEA. The auction was held to benefit 826NYC, Get Caught Reading and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
"I don't know why I did it," he wrote at the time. "It just sounded very, very cool."
It is. Check out Larry's rockin' performance, now appearing on a YouTube screen near you.
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Mary Jane DiSanti has decided not to sell the Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, Mont., after resolving health issues that had led her to consider the move. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, "When the proposed sale was announced, a number of people expressed interest in buying the store, she said, but she wasn't ready to discuss a price."
"As I thought more of selling, I realized how much I'd miss it," DiSanti said. "I wasn't ready to let the bookstore out of my nest. It meant too much to me."
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Independent publishers in the U.K. "continue not only to survive but thrive," according to the Observer, which profiled Philip Kogan, chairman of 40-year-old "Kogan Page, by some distance this country's largest indie publisher of business books."
Kogan attributed his company's long-term survival to "Forty years of obduracy! . . . You could argue that as independents we have to be better than the big companies to survive." Ultimately, he said, the "fundamentals of publishing don't change. It's about acquiring good intellectual property and getting it to market."
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The literati of Second Life's role-playing world are taking virtual classes, discussing Kate Chopin's The Awakening, and even creating buildings based on the novels of Gloria Naylor. In addition, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the "American Library Association has joined Second Life too, in an area called Cybrary City. ALA Internet Development Specialist Jenny Levine said the professional group uses the service to disseminate ALA news, and also to hold events and interact with the public."