USPS’s Flats Sequencing System Comes Under Scrutiny

The United States Postal Service's flats sequencing system (FSS)—a $1.3 billion mail-sorting system for magazines and catalogues—was billed as a revolutionary advancement when it was first unveiled a decade ago, to the point that its rollout even included a slickly produced, Hollywood-style movie trailer. "Consistent, reliable, and on-time delivery," "affordable mail service," "intelligence through technology"—what's not to love? Ten years and 100 installations later, FSS is "still falling short of expectations," according to a new report from the USPS Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which raised eyebrows upon its public release earlier this month for its uncharacteristically frank assessment of the postal service's operations. "More troubling," the OIG writes, "is that it's unclear whether processing flats on FSS machines is more cost-efficient than using AFSM [the automated flats sorting machine, FSS's precursor]." While the OIG regularly makes recommendations to the postal service based on its assessments, this felt different, says Rita Cohen, senior VP of legislative and regulatory policy at the MPA (the Association of Magazine Media). “They said they don’t even understand the operational and financial impact of the system," Cohen tells Folio:. "They don’t know that this entire system is less expensive than what they were doing before, which included manual processing." The USPS, in its own strongly worded statement, disputed the OIG's audit, which it called... Continue reading at 'Folio Magazine'

[ Folio Magazine | 2018-08-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Biased Online Book Ratings Systems Undermining Professional Review Sources: Book Censorship News, November 4, 2022

BookLooks, RatedBooks, and more biased online rating systems getting books banned. That, plus this week's book censorship news. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2022-11-04 10:40:00 UTC ]
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S&S Sales Up 10% in Q3, but Profits Are Flat

Though its third-quarter results slowed compared to the first half of 2022, Simon & Schuster remains on track to have a record year, which CEO Jonathan Karp attributed to employees' ability to stay focused on books despite the company being for sale for more than two years. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-11-02 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Print Unit Sales Flat in Late August

Unit sales of print books for the week ended Aug. 27, 2022, were flat compared to the similar week in 2021 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-09-02 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Print Book Sales Were Flat Last Week

Unit sales of print books pulled off a rare feat last week: sales were flat with the week ended August 28, 2021. The achievement was due to another week of solid sales increases in adult and young adult fiction and only a small decrease in sales of adult nonfiction. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-09-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Macmillan Slowly Bringing Systems Back

In an update on the status of a "security incident" that forced Macmillan to take many of its computer systems offline, the company said it has made progress in restoring access, but said that while it is accepting orders electronically, it is “unable to process them at the time.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-07-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Alternatives to the Dewey Decimal System

Many libraries are looking for cataloguing techniques as an alternative to the Dewey Decimal system. Here are a few options. Continue reading at Book Riot

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Racism’s ill effects on the health-care system — and the body itself

Linda Villarosa offers data as well as vivid anecdotes to illustrate the biases that patients of color face. Continue reading at The Washington Post

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A memoir of family, race, poetry and stereo systems

Garrett Hongo tells a coming-of-age story wrapped in his love of writing and music, and recounts his lifelong quest for the perfect audio equipment. Continue reading at The Washington Post

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In a flawed system, a Black prosecutor wonders if she’s pursuing justice or being complicit

Laura Coates offers an honest description of prosecutors' complex moral universe. Continue reading at The Washington Post

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Little Island signs Mitchell's middle-grade novel on Ireland's asylum system

Little Island Books has landed Jane Mitchell's "urgently needed" middle-grade novel on Ireland's asylum-seeker accommodation system. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-05 14:22:36 UTC ]
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In ‘The Fortune Men,’ a corrupt legal system frames an innocent man

Nadifa Mohamed's novel is inspired by the life and death of Mahmood Hussein Mattan. Continue reading at The Washington Post

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After a criminal justice nightmare, he’s fighting the ‘broken’ system

Jarrett Adams recounts his grueling path from a wrongful conviction to a law career. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-10-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Blackwell's system outage leaves website down for a week

A systems outage which caused severe IT problems for Blackwell's is still affecting the bookseller's website a week after the problem first appeared, although recovery work is now underway. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-05 10:24:39 UTC ]
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Systems outage leaves Blackwell's offline for three days

A systems outage has caused severe IT problems for Blackwells, leaving the bookseller offline and its website unavailable for three days. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Progressive or performative? Disability staff networks come under scrutiny

A number of the larger publishers have set up internal networks to improve access to the industry for minority communities; here are six essential steps to ensure their success Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-26 12:53:06 UTC ]
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Begum reflects on Lit in Colour’s first year as initiative looks to push systemic change

Launched a year ago in a collaboration between Penguin Random House and The Runnymede Trust, Lit in Colour seeks to make the books taught in classrooms more representative of modern life in Britain Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Mona Awad’s struggles with chronic pain and the health-care system fuel her new novel

‘All’s Well’ is a darkly comic tale of a suffering theater professor and a troubled production of Shakespeare. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-06 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Agencies’ latest DE&I initiatives aim to dig deeper into systemic challenges for diverse and minority media

Publicis, Nielsen and Havas Media all took steps to advance DE&I efforts in the last 24 hours. The post Agencies’ latest DE&I initiatives aim to dig deeper into systemic challenges for diverse and minority media appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2021-07-08 04:01:00 UTC ]
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Covering systemic violence without showing video of police killings

By now, many (if not most) of us have seen the cellphone video of the murder of George Floyd by Minnesota Police officer Derek Chauvin multiple times. The video—captured by a Black teenager named Darnella Frazier while she was walking to the store with her young cousin—has featured prominently... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-04-22 12:44:36 UTC ]
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Haymarket Anthology 'Against Ableism' Comes Under Scrutiny

Haymarket Books has come under scrutiny in the last week over a recently announced anthology that critics say badly misjudges the wants of the disability community. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-04-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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