BTW News Briefs

McIntosh Named Random House COO

On June 12, Markus Dohle, Random House chairman and CEO, announced the appointment of Madeline McIntosh as the company’s chief operating officer. She was previously president of sales, operations, and digital.

McIntosh will continue to report to Dohle and will continue to oversee digital and print sales, operations, fulfillment, IT, corporate digital product development, corporate marketing development, audio and travel publishing, and third-party distribution.

She began her career at Random House in 1994 with the New Media department at then Bantam Doubleday Dell.

Attorney Michael Bamberger Wins FTRF Award

First Amendment attorney Michael A. Bamberger has been named the recipient of the 2012 Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) Roll of Honor Award.

“For over 30 years, Michael  Bamberger has been one of the unsung heroes of the fight to protect free speech in the United States,” said Roll of Honor Committee Chair Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.  “As the general counsel of the Media Coalition, he has successfully challenged dozens of federal, state and local laws that attempted to censor material protected by the First Amendment, including books, magazines, recordings, movies, videos, video games and the Internet.”

Bamberger is perhaps best known for the landmark case Hudnut v. American Booksellers Association, a challenge to an Indianapolis anti-pornography ordinance. The law was inspired by Andrea Dworkin and framed as a matter of civil rights. FTRF filed amicus briefs in that case with the district court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.  In 1985, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts’ decisions to strike down the ordinance as unconstitutional.

In addition to his work at Media Coaltion and his position as partner at SNR Denton law firm, Bamberger serves as adjunct professor of law at Cardozo Law School and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.  He is author of 2000’s Reckless Legislation: How Lawmakers Ignore the Constitution.

Follett to Manage SFSU Bookstore

Despite broad support from students and faculty in favor of keeping SFSU Bookstore independent, at its June 5 meeting the board of directors of the University Corporation (UCorp) voted to award the SFSU Bookstore management contractfor the next five years to Follett Higher Education Group (FHEG). Follett will take over management of the store effective July 1, 2012.

The Bookstore will be operated under the auspices of UCorp — a nonprofit university affiliate organization responsible for providing a variety of campus services — and Follett will be responsible for front and back office management processes.  

The university issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the bookstore in February 2012.

The SFSU Trade Book Department, one of the largest in the country, is managed by ABA Board member Ken White.

MPIBA Names Award Winners

The Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association has named this year’s winners of its Reading the West Awards, which honor adult and children’s titles that exemplify the best in writing and/or illustrations about the region, or whose authors and illustrators live in the region.

The winners are:

• Adult Fiction: The Voice of the River, by Melanie Rae Thon (University of Alabama Press)
• Adult Nonfiction: Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout, by Philip Connors (Ecco)
• Children’s: Missing on Superstition Mountain, by Elise Broach and Antonio Javier Caparo (Holt)