Falling membership in the Book-of-the-Month Club did not stop falling when its owner, Bertelsman, merged its book clubs with those of Time Warner to form Bookspan; the prestigious old club has lost over a million members since the late 1980s. So, as Ed Wyatt reports in a New York Times story, BOMC is making some sweeping changes including “the elimination of the panel of literary judges that each month choose the club’s prestigious main selection.” (The panel, which was only put back into place in 2001 after having been dropped in 1994, consisted of Annie Proulx, Anna Quindlen, Bill Bryson and Nelson DeMille.) But most of its changes seem geared toward making BOMC more like its Internet competitors: “Club members will still receive 17 mailings a year, each with a monthly selection that they can accept or reject, but those books will be chosen by the club’s staff based on a member’s previous purchases and expressed interests, much like the recommendations of Amazon.com,” reports Wyatt. “Another new feature, Booksearch Plus, allows members to shop for books outside the regular club offerings, making the club more like other Internet book retailers. And like Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com and other online retailers, the club will waive shipping charges on purchases of $25 or more.”