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Binc Auctions Bit of Borders History to Help Booksellers

 The letters from the outdoor signage from the former Borders flagship store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, are being auctioned by the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) to raise money to assist bookstore employees across the country with emergency financial grants.

Malcolm Properties, LLC, the building owners, donated the the letters spelling BORDERS BOOKS & MUSIC to the foundation. “The two-foot tall metal and plexiglass letters are waiting to adorn a bookshelf, wall, cupboard, indoors or out,” says Binc. “Whether you want one of the distinctive ‘B’s, your initials, a favorite letter, or enough letters to spell out a special word or name be sure to bid early and often!

 From January 21 to January 31, bids can be placed at donations.ebay.com/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=59114.

Random House Launches BookScout Facebook App

The New York Times reported this week on a new app, released on Tuesday by Random House’s digital unit, called BookScout. The app allows users to share favorite books with friends and then receive reading recommendations based on their own preferences. For first-users, the app relies on previous “likes” of books or general interest pages to gather information about books that  the user might enjoy. If the user has not liked any books or general interests, the app will offer bestsellers until it learns the user’s preferences.

“The sharing takes place on Facebook but is focused just on books, and it is stripped of the social network’s extras, like chat groups,” theTimes noted. The app features selections from all publishers that are available to buy using links to major retailers.

 Macmillan Begins Public Library E-lending Pilot Program

On Thursday, Macmillan announced that a select group of its e-books will be made available to public libraries for e-lending through a pilot program, which is set to launch before the end of the first quarter of 2013.

Under the agency model, and working with multiple distributors, Macmillan said that it will offer more than 1,200 backlist e-books from St. Martin’s Minotaur Books mystery and crime fiction imprint. Once purchased by a library, the titles will be available to them to lend for two years or 52 lends, whichever comes first. All of the books in the program will have the same digital list price. The titles will be available through a number of distributors, and at the launch through Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 Digital Media Library, OverDrive, and the 3M Cloud Library.