XplanaZine

Updates on: Japan’s bestsellers written on cellphone, HM Riverdeep’s acquisition of Reed Elsevier approved, European Union’s calls for open-mandated access to scientific research

Half of Japan’s top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copies. By August, the president of Goma Books, Masayoshi Yoshino, was declaring in a manifesto that he was determined “to establish this not simply as a fad, but as a new kind of culture”. — Sydney Morning Herald

Education publisher HM Riverdeep has received the regulatory nod for its planned $4bn acquisition of Reed Elsevier’s Harcourt US education business. — TheBookseller.com

The European Union has provoked concerns among publishers in pushing for a “mandated” open access publishing model to ensure that all publicly funded research is freely available. According to EU statistics, member states account for 43% of the world’s scientific research. — TheBookseller.com