futureofthebook.com

LongNow still there

In another new year threshold the
Long Now Foundation is still now. Of especial interest is the on-line archive of 1000 languages; the
Rosetta project.

happy Umbrella new year

2002 marks the 25th anniversary year for Judith Hoffberg’s
Umbrella. This awesome critical and poetic quarterly review of readable art will continue its print format through the year and then, perhaps, threshold to another delivery format.

***what’s next? FotB knows!

We earned enough in two weeks to buy the machine. Next we are going to refine our 9×6 book products and look for alternatives sites such as coffee houses and book stores. Another possible convergence is book vending with the PoD people.

As Walt Crawford reports in the January American Libraries, the Print-on-Demand publishing technologies will most invigorate local and regional authorship. The standard, GenericBrand, paperback output is just the thing for vending and vending is just the thing for a low-overhead, ultra-local retailing.

Its another scenario of the future of the print reading mode. Meanwhile, with the screen read ebook dead, the audio/ebook is fast emerging in the oral/verbal reading mode.

(that’s Tatiana Ginsberg of the “Structure of the Hand Made Book” class at the vending machine)

curious remark

About 40 years ago the publisher Charles Scribner remarked that if books became obsolete he would manufacture candles. Curiously, the production of candles in the USA today is greater, per person, than it was in colonial times and they are persisting in an increasing range of uses all in a context of electrical illumination. Was Charles actually anticipating the future of books in a digital context?

FotB perimeter

FotB has been linked from another aspect ratio, alternative zone, logger,
fear everything

vote for your local FotB dealer

This
Resource Guide maintains reader voting to grade websites on book art. FotB has six visits, but no votes.

***“Imagining the Book” in Alexandria

September to October, 2002, an international gathering of book art makers: ” The core of the proposed project is a workshop, exhibition and colloquium that would bring together artists and scholars representing different languages and cultures to present the book as art, pushing out the boundaries of the concept of ìbookî to highlight the role of the imagination in inspiring and documenting our
journey towards knowledge and wisdom.” (Bibliotheca Alexandrina)

tracking the art vending movement

This character has a writing/lettering design nack . Content is a mystery mix of logger city travels and linked marginalia with tracking of art vending developments. Do we know this person? http://www.calamondin.com/

mediating the modes

In a story straight out of a Matt Groening (Bart Simpson) Futurama Comics,
Terry Belanger reports the startling discovery that several of his undergraduate students have never learned to write by hand; ” they went straight from ball-and-stick lettering in the first or second grade to a computer keyboard.”
Which is not to say that they have neglected the writing mode, or communication between a particular sender and particular receiver. The change here is the degree of technological mediation used to achieve the transmission. Pen and paper and eMail texting are in the same reading mode, excepting their differences in terms of the “Man-Machine Brotherhood”.

future & past of ebooks

Future: Go to
Audible.com
Past: Go to
Obituaries

” A New Way To Enjoy A Great Book!
At Audible, you can download a bestselling book and listen to it on your commute, at the gym, or anywhere. Visit us now and get a free MP3 player and start listening today. Sample us first – you’ll love what you hear. Listen to a best seller, an online version of your favorite newspaper or magazine or exclusive entertainment from Robin Williams.” (from NYT ad)

BOOK DROP – second week

The
Book Drop vending machine is now averaging $110 per day (for the last 14 days). That even with empty slots and a number of items out of stock. Customers are extremely varied from upper adminstration to raggy undergraduates but all have been really enthusiastic. “It’s such a thrill to get books in a vending machine!” “It’s so post-digital!”
Thanks to
Andrea’s Weblog for the wonderful comments on the Book Drop project.

postscript to endnote

The FotB discussion on e-Book Obsolescence began over a year ago (9.30.00) during a period of enthusiasm and expectation. Now (12.21.01) the flush is over and the obsolescence and lack of acceptance of a hand held reading device for presentation of books is
apparent. But there was a way that would have worked; all that would have been needed is thresholding across to another reading mode.

Audio books on tape now have some 5% penetration of the publishing market. If the eBook had crossed this threshold to the oral/verbal/aural reading mode there could have been another story to the story. Needed would have been the wireless headset and web based distribution and the on-demand data base of texts synthesized for audio. The conversion would be on the fly and offer itself a menu of options for choice of language and accent.

This way would have worked especially in multi task settings such as commuting. The way not to simulate turning the page is not to turn the page. Even web based access to tape libraries would have worked. (search audio ebooks) (
for example)

ISRKT portal

information structuring and rapid knowledge transfer
(links for)

ReBA to go LiveJournal

Review of Book Art is gathering steam for a New Year launch. The first instigator of discussion is on
legiblity in book art. Here is an example of
LiveJournal format.

dead media and defunct hardware

We all know about Bruce Sterling’s long standing
dead media project, but did you go to the
obsolete computer museum? Then check out an
eBook museum.

pagan ebooks and ghost cams

A good portal – http://www.paganmuse.com/

whither Wired

The January issue is less than half the size.

“Freneticism and disappointment, excitement and fear. The history of technology is filled with bursts and busts. Looking backward is not to retreat into the past but to prepare for the future.”
“The Internet is just part of a stream of economic, cultural, and industrial revolutions that date back centuries”

BOOK DROP – first week

Our
Book Drop vending machine (credit Kristin Baum for the brilliant name) has averaged $100 per day revenues for the first week. We are using 12 working slots that hold a dozen 6 x 9 book products packaged in 2 mil poly recloseable bags. Our stuff sells for $5 to $15. The SnackShop-111 machine is a pretty refined technology with easy stocking and pricing and surprisingly clean vending of our irregular items. The LED panel scrolls the endless message; “Have a Nice Book”
Geez FotB rules!

Folderol has named FotB “Cool Librarian Site of the Week”
futureofthebook book of the future

We take a
field trip to the leading edge of innovations in the book format at Corporate Image/Archival Products/Library Binding Service.

thanks for all the fish

go there and return on different terms the logger at the end of the universe: http://www.livejournal.com/users/badcat/ Anville was mined as a referer.

twenty year UseNet archive

compliments of Google: http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

***let’s see

“eBook Market for downloadable books will grow:
* from 10 million in 1999;
* to $100 million in 2000;
* by 400% in each of the next 2 years;
* to $3.1 billion by end of 2004;
* to over $25 billion by 2008.”
“* In comparison, pBook Market is $25 billion in 2000, growing at 7% to 9% per year. In 2008 it will be just over $50 billion.”

Reports David Spiselman,
Cyclopsmedia.com.

book drop link

Thanks to http://aaronland.net/weblog/ for the link to
Book Drop

personal portal links to FotB

“Calebos.org, and everything associated with it, is my contribution to the Web.”
Edward Bilodeau

circle of interactions

FotB continues a conclusion in
review of,
“The Evidence in Hand:Report of the Task Force on the Artifact in Library Collections”, CLIR, November, 2001. The more academics you convene, the less attention will be paid to the obvious.

size of the circle

“As a matter of general archaeological interest I append the quotation as
kindly supplied by Prebendary F.G Bennett, from Bishop Sherburne’s Statutes
[early 16th century]:

‘Also, because (the Philosopher being witness) all things
are corrupted and become decayed in time, to the end and effect that our
muniments may not, so far as we can prevent it, perish in course of time,
we ordain and will that our original purchasings with their indentures,
terriers, lettings, obligations and rentals, be, by the order of Mr. Dean
and the Chapter, first transcribed into a clean, well bound book on paper,
and then, within two years at the most into a parchment book, strongly
bound with choice, thick and close-grained boards; and that the originals
of the old purchasings be placed in our Treasury in strong oaken boxes,
without being folded or rolled up; but let the boxes be of such dimensions
that the muniments may be altogether free from being cracked and rolled
together . We ordain furthermore and will that after the annual Compotus
the boxes be immediately opened and the muniments be turned with careful
examination, lest anything should perish by the boxes becoming old, or by
the eating of worms, or in any other way. And this matter we commit to the
Prebendaries ordained by us with the Sub-Treasurer.’” (Thanks to
Jack Thompson for this excerpt)

Book Drop goes live

Television crews are coming in from all over the city.

“University of Iowa bookCenter for the Book studies students are offering a unique holiday gift idea along with an unusual shopping experience. Handmade books and kits for binding your own books are available at a new “Book Drop” vending machine installed in the North Lobby of the University of Iowa’s Main Library. The book arts vending project grew out of a class offered at the UI Libraries’ “Structure of the Handmade Book”. The class is a collaborative effort by the UI Center for the Book (UICB) and the UI Libraries.”
(more).

three ringer reinvented

Not since the ruled spine of 17th century Armenian binding has the deep round been so elegantly articulated. The Corporate Image
Round Back is a world class Iowan contribution to the future of the book.

***“Gutenberg has the last laugh here”

AOL Time Warner is shutting down its eBook division. The eBook as a substitution for the Booke didn’t work because its a different reading mode with other applications. (from the
NYTimes, 12/5/2001)

real time book sewing

This is some kind of
video from some kind of logger site that links to FotB. I have been watching it, but can’t decipher the aspect ratio yet.

volumetric

Exhibition: November 16 – December 21 The Ontological Library, by Ronald Leax, is a work so large and so poignant and so evocative that it is almost a state of mind. Books that rust, that grow strange crystals, that become something else altogether, massed together in a rather overwhelming amalgamation; that’s The Ontological Library.

This will take a bit of investigation, but a three fold explanation by D.B.Dowd offers indication that this is real. Its at the
Chicago Center for Paper & Book Art.

Harry Potter and a CLIR Report

There is an underlying relation between the release of the Harry Potter film and the publication of ìEvidence in Hand: Report of the Task Force on the Artifact in Library Collectionsî, November, 2001. The relationship is this; thresholding between reading modes produces new meaning.
(more)