By Hannah Johnson

At The Bookseller Retail Awards last night, almost all of the major retailers nominated for an award walked away with one. At the start of the ceremony, Bookseller editor-in-chief Niell Denny’s announced that the Retail Awards would merge with the British Bookseller Awards in 2010. A highlight among the presenters was Peter Usborne, who presented the award for Children’s Bookseller of the Year to Borders. He said that “children’s [books] is where it’s at” noted that the children’s book market hasn’t noticed the credit crunch. For a complete list of winners, see The Bookseller’s report.

Widely reported, Hachette Livre and Lightning Source announced that they will partner to build a print-on-demand facility near Paris. The facility will first be available to all Hachette-owned companies, and the service will later be extended to third parties. Hachette Livre CEO Arnoud Nourry said the significance of this partnership means that “no book entered into the program will ever be out of print.”

On September 16, the Australian Productivity Commission released a supplement to its July 2009 report, which favors lifting import restrictions on books from other countries. The supplement was a response to a challenging report written by the Australian Publishers Association. The supplement defends the Commission’s recommendation to lift restrictions. The matter will be decided in the Federal Cabinet, and according to The Australian, the ministers are divided.