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Show IticSalt Lake Inbuilt', For Good or Bad, Videocassettes Infiltrate Island." are $25 each And at $20, ' Crown Publishing s "Movie Classics Doe," John "Meet them, a chain among bookstore Entering "Made for Each Other," and "His Girl ly. the first thing a shopper sees is a ' are only a little more (and Friday display table stacked with classics of James Michener's latcase the in "The Bed Badge of Courage," "The a little less) than est book, "Texas," and a Ivanhoe." Yearling," an average hard cover Discounted by others, all impressively packaged Crown Books (no relation) to $15. they in leatherette Across the street, anbecome highly competitive. other bookseller has a conspicuous W ith a further decrease in the rack devoted to such favorites as price "The Jungle Book" and "Gullivers of videocassettes (as well as an inev" Travels itable increase in the price of books), it's seems safe to assume all things These are not classic books, howevIn which case, at but classic er, movies, and, along with will soon be equal. least one crucial question remains. Julia Child, Jane Fonda and the VelWill people be as willing to buy tapes veteen Rabbit, they signal the arrival from bookstores as they have to rent of the video revolution in the nation s them from video shops? bookstores Booksellers should have a prelimiVideocassettes started showing up on bookstore shelves a year ago, and, nary idea of whether there's a buyer's a according to most sources, they have as well as renter's market by late the results begin to when this year, to have any measurable impact yet come in from Christmas receipts In itself, though, the appearance of At that time, booksellers also videotapes in bookstores is anachroshould have an early indication of the nistic enough. By almost any measure, economic or cultural, video impact, good or bad, videotapes have on book sales. Will they steal directly would appear to be a mortal enemy of books and reading, to say nothing from book revenues? Or will they, as of literacy in general merchants pray, create more booktraffic and sell more books? For store e Not only do videocassettes com-petthe present, booksellers can consider for a customer's time and mon-ley- , the deleterious effect video rentals but also they command precious may be having on paperback sales at space in the stores, displacing books the supermarkets, discount houses from crowded shelves the For the moment, though, none of and drugstores serviced by the Charles Co., Levy Circulating the above seems to present any grave Midwest's largest distributor of pafor booksellers. problem "Hypothetiperbacks, magazines and videotapes cally, it does make sense that $20 "We have to be careful in creating a on won't that $20 is spent videotape a relationship," says be spent on a book," acknowledges Levy president David Moscow, "but Bill Edwards, vice president of new we do know, because we re the only business development for B. Dalton, company in the area that distributes which has aggressively plugged into both products, that paperback sales the video market. Also, the two are going down and video sales and hours that it takes to watch a movie rentals are going up. Since prerecordcould be spent reading a book. ed movies provide an inexpensive alHowever logical it may sound, that ternative to reading at home, it may theory hasn't worked out in practice, follow that the sales drop in paperinsists Edwards, who says that "popubacks is attributable in part to their larly priced prerecorded tapes are availability. busibook our with very compatible "Theres no consumer research to ness. In fact, were having a much prove that this is in fact the case. But .better year in book sales than last." it out," Moscow says. Even so, with videocassettes still you figure "About $3 billion will be spent this such a novelty item in bookstores, it year on video software. That money may be premature to draw any condoesn't just get invented; it's got to be a case of too little, too clusions from somewhere. I think coming early. some of it may be coming from the As yet, none of the major bookstore paperback market, though I don't chains, whether B. Dalton, Crown have evidence to support the case." Books, Waldenbooks or Kroch's & Like booksellers, many major pubBrentano's, has turned over any siglishers are moving into video, though nificant space to video products, with extreme caution; this is based, at though they are usually positioned so least in part, on their experience with the customer cant miss them. the software book "explosion, which Any time you put merchandise in managed to burn many publishers bethe store that's not part of the main fore it fizzled out. Among the publishline," says Edwards, "you have to put ers getting into video, the more agit up front, to let the consumer know gressive may be Simon & Schuster it's there. You've got to make it clear I possibly because it lost millions in that you're in the business. by failing to hang onto the royalties At Kroch's, which has entered the rights to the Jane Fonda videotape field much more circumspectly than workouts. videocas-Jsettes of its competitors, many To head its audio-videdivision, have been assigned, on a test S&S recruited Valeri Cade from basis, to an "electronic boutique" Clairol, where she was director of with audio products and computer marketing. "I've spent the last year exWilliam software, says McCarthy, and a half studying what other people ecutive vice president. "Primarily, have done," says Cade, and I havent we feel our business is book retailing, seen much I thought was terrific, that sideand were looking on these as used the medium in a way that would lines. We're making room for them make the consumer want to buy the while trying not to take away from product." book space." As the company's first video origiIf video follows the pattern of aunal, Cade has produced "The Ameridio in Kroch stores, customer accepcan Cancer Society's Freshstart; 21 tance will come, but gradually. And . not Days to Stop Smoking," a before the price of videotapes instructional tape, which Cade comes down to the level of calls a product that is uniquely video books. At $400, the five videotapes publishing. It is not television. Most that make up "The Jewel in the people are putting out videos that are Crown" hardly qualify as an "impulse more like television than anything j purchase"; nor can they compete with else. You can get television for free, ! e the edition of the books so why buy it?" on which the Masterpiece Theater seNonetheless, S&S is not ignoring ries was based. Paul Scott's "Raj TV. The company has acquired video Quartet, priced at $25. And even the most luxurious gift books cost less rights to "The Jewel in the Crown and assorted other British TV imthan the double-cassett- e version of "Gone with the Wind" ($90) or "Ghost- ports, such as "Staying On, also based on a Paul Scott novel; The Adbusters" ($80). ventures of Sherlock Holmes"; and, U Nonetheless, these are becoming most appropriately perhaps, The exceptions that disprove the rule, Road to 1984," a dramatization of from all the evidence, videocassettes Orwell's life. George are getting more competitive all the Because it's such an time. Where the fixed price of video movies was about $80 a few years publisher, Simon & Schuster seems right at home in the video ago, the going rate now is in the field. But more exclusively literary neighborhood of $30. The MGM claspublishers are getting into the game sics, which include The Adventures as well. Random House with an am- of Huckleberry Finn" and "Treasure John Blades Chicago Tribune hall-doze- cause-and-effe- mated version of "The Velveteen Rabbit," narrated by Meryl Streep, and its corporate cousin, the prestigious house of Knopf, with Julia Child s "The W ay to Cook," a r home video course that is. according to vice president and associate publisher Jane B Friedman, "truly revo" lutionary Like so many others in publishing and book selling. Friedman doesn t think video fallout will have any ill effects on the market for books, or on the nation's reading habits "I think books will last," she says. "These other areas, video and audio, are supplements to book publishing, and they will all flourish " These are sentiments widely echoed both in bookstores and publishing houses. "It's not a burning issue in the book business," says Harvey Plot-nicpresident of Contemporary Books, one of Chicago's largest publishers and a distributor of videocassettes to sporting goods stores and specialty shops. "I've never heard people talk of video being a threat They talk more about the opportunities." For Plotmck, it is not just a question of peaceful coexistence; the relationship between books and videocassettes may be mutually beneficial. He cites trade studies that indicate "active people, including people who watch TV more than average, tend to read more books Right now, if you spend four hours in front of your TV, statistically you'll spend more time reading than the guy who watches for only two hours. Sou ask, 'My God, when are these people sleeping?' People who are interested and enthusiastic about things find the time to . . . do it If you gel interested in something, whether it's through video or some other way, you tend to have a thirst to learn more, and so you II buy more books " Yet it's difficult to regard the opinions of publishers and booksellers without some skepticism, since they or the ones who have added video to their inventories would seem to have the least to lose. What about those who have the most to lose? Besides hard-cor- e readers, they would seem to be the authors of books, but if video has inspired any widespread fear and trembling among them, they have yet to be recorded. Ray Bradbury, for one, whose visionary writings might make him more wary than most authors, thinks we have little cause for alarm. "Every 15 or 20 years, there's some kind of revolution and everybody panics, saying it's the end of the book business. But that never turns out to be true. The doomsayers are always wrong There's plenty of room for ev" erybody One of the "doom sayers" or disis Neil Postman, a New believers York University communications professor whose new book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," considers the harmful effects of TV. He maintains that the video infiltration of bookstores represents "a very substantial assault on literate culture. People who say it won't have an effect on reading are wrong. But I don't know that videocassettes are the point. Television is the point, and videocassettes merely make television more dominant than it otherwise might be. If new technologies extend that influence, it will continue to move typog raphy to the edges of our culture, "and keep visual images at the center The case against videocassettes -as well as television in general -- - is even more strenuously argued bv Jonathan Kozol, author of lilitetate America." who sas I m convinced that they will lowei the incentive ol people to do the difficult wotk of reading, and it will also deny them the far greater pleasure you get from books With 50 million people in the United Slates already unable to read a book, and millions more unwilling, this looks like the last nail in the coffin of American literacy "Good authors ask us to join them ' Salt Lake City area high school students Spencer S Hsu, student body president at Skyline High School, and Michael Wang, student body president at South High School, are Utah's delegates to the 1986 U.S. Senate Youth Program in Washington, DC., Feb. 1 through 8 The delegates were selected by Bernarr S. Furse, acting state superintendent of public education The announcement Sen. Jake Garn, was made by and Sen Or-ri- n Hatch, Along with 102 other elected high school student body officers, two from each state, the District of Columbia and Department of Defense dependents schools overseas, the two look into federal will take a close-ugovernment operations and the U S. p Senate in particular. step-by-ste- p Buy one of these suits at their original price, get another suit Originally $185.00-$195.0This is a select group of equal or lower price FREE! 0. worsted wool suits in navy, grey or brown solids & stripes. Regular, short and long sizes. Ifcah GYM EQUIPMENT Stuart Carter t )i t1) ti iif 582-503- tiite iv4l si it i ni t it C Lt 'oW ft ill H4 I OH Ntw tiM yr IJmK IWVUIU l.u t uttnoi St C ul Ai Hi i' C Mt I ( till 3-pie- 6 1 i UnivwcU i I'A 7 ii I' t WmkjIiK ii'fiiM' KtVe IMS if is Country sin Mdcl'tnns tH' of 100 2-a- nd ce AiM.ImfMi '!!( t'lin'J's h.ts l)on dtl tll sN'AM n n', VALLEY FAIR Dec. 26 Sat. 10-- 6 9:30-- 9 Fri. 10-- 9 Thur. Sun. Closed sHfi I 1nns ij' lull r dv t'Mnri FASHION PLACE Dec. 26 Sat. 10-- 6 9-- 9 dialogue that transcends our mortality," Kool says 'With VCRs, we cease to be an active intelligence in such a dialogue Instead, we become passive receptacles ol an adulterated version of the real thing " and the But pci haps the last most foreboding words on the subject of video veisus books should go Home to Stuai t Karl ol Video In trying to ease their apprehensions, Karl told a gathering of booksellers 'You shouldnt look at video as replacement of a book. It's or a big more like a little brother brother " Which seems to suggest that Rig Brother wont be watching us. after all We ll be watching him in a - Karl-Lorima- r 2 Student Leaders to Join Senate Study hard-cov-(- t Ti, I'W" Market Classical-Boo- k o 'i )rrmhrr IGd Hiidue of Comaisc hunliot1 By Wtdnesdav, Thur. Fri. 10-- 9 Sun. 12-- 5 Each delegate will be awarded a college scholarship to study American government and related subjects The scholarships and program are made possible through grants from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation No government funds are $2,000 used Without advertising, you woti&rt know. Qb |
