futureofthebook.com

reading is bigger than books

FotB is auditing a new class in the School of Library & Information Science. This is Christine Pawley’s
“History of Readers and Reading”.
The seminar class has twelve very smart library school students and the discussion sessions are awesome.

libraries have edge in job market for librarians

I am tired of administration repeating how dependent libraries are on technology and how difficult it is for them to compete for technology expertise. If libraries compete for librarians instead, they will find the judgement to use technolgy in balance with the more important goal of helping people to read within the current storm of the multiplicity of reading modes. Librarians have the good sense to know that the technologies only augment good sense.

“Promulgate the subversive notion that quality of life has little to do with an index of all the gadgets we own, or all the data we can accumulate.” Adam Greenfield
(more)

warring reading modes, each bent on domination?

Text-e virtual symposium continues with the topic of “Reading without Writing” as introduced by Dan Sperber. FotB fights for all the reading modes and their fair interplays.
(more)

ebooks taking off in various directions again

Find out why librarians and libraries are so backward and so forward at the
Electronic Book Web For backward libraries see
Internet & Libraries and for forward libraries (by the same author) see
Future of ePublishing. What is difficult to believe is not the confusion itself, but the lack of understanding that the screen read book industry must be established in a reading mode other than the print reading mode. See
chart.

no, it is not going away yet

While “Doublefold” is nominated for the best non-fiction book of the year by the National Book Critics Circle, it is also timely to note
“Do We Want to Keep our Newspapers? A Librarian Looks at Preservation” by Karin Wittenborg and the magnificent essay by Tim Barrett in the Autumn 2001, 3/11, UICB
Counter,; “Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold, and the Value of Original Documents”.

side effects of a composite reading mode

“Even in today’s culture of daily sensory overload, with its bombardment of music and synthetic imagery at every turn, a library could be expected to furnish a haven from unwanted distraction. That, at any rate, seems to be the opinion of the Lincoln Center librarians themselves. More than half a dozen with whom I talked reported feeling demoralized by the new reading room.”
“Quiet, Please” New York Times, January 27.

Timeless Tech timed

The dates of the Timeless Tech 2002 symposium in the Idaho hills are set for July 24 to August 7 at the Jim and Melody Croft homestead near Santa, ID. This will be a wonderful event among truely interesting characters in a magnificent setting. The cost, including rustic lodgings and home-grown/home-cooked meals will be kept down to $150 per week.
(more) Also a description of a previous Oldways
event

FotB on the road, 01.22-25.02

FotB produced a lecture and four days of workshops for design students at the University of Northern Iowa. Over 25 students of Phil Fassí design classes attended the workshops with instruction in Cartennage & Free Leaf, Transfer Tape Binding and limited edition Sewn Board binding. Together these workshop projects provide a hands-on introduction to the legacy and future of the sewn board bookbinding structure.

The Meryl Norton Hearst Lecture was titled ìFuture of the Book vs. Book of the Future; Projecting the Print Reading Modeî. About 200 students and guests were entertained with the FotB matrix for reading modes and a narrated slide exposition of the timeless technical, haptic and user attractions of the paper book. The e book and paper book now define each other while all multiplicities of the book format, both historical and futuristic, are merged by a need to preserve conceptual works.
(more)

audio ebook of the month

Audio.com
club for connected book listeners.

emu jerky

you can get emu jerky over the counter at the Lost Maples cafe in Utopia, Texas. Evidentally it is also available in vending machines. Here is a
list and description of things sold in vending machines, including comic books, Bibles and novels. Vending machines in Japan are very diversified.
(more)
(even more)

book vending machine in library coffee shop

developing
story on print reading mode preservation.

live between Roger Chartier and Adrian Johns, (FotB exclusive)

Roger Chartier kept a capacity audience enchanted all during his three hour lecture and discussion Friday at the
Newberry Library in Chicago (01.18.02). The presentation, ìTextual Criticism and the History of the Book:
Literature and the Printing Shop (16th – 17th Centuries)î in part described Miguel Cervantes awareness of printing
occupations and their metaphorical as well as direct relevance to the production of literature. The roles of
composition, casting off, working the press, correcting and editing, as undertaken in the print shop reflect, as well,
the roles of the author.
(more)

FotB to Jeep into Iowa wilderness

FotB will be presenting a lecture and workshop at the University of Northern Iowa next week.
(more)

somebody is minding the store

Laura Bush announced new IMLS funding to recruit a new generation of librarians.
(more)

Pod Book Builder One

Down in Texas Harvey Ross has designed and built a high quality, entry level
BookBuilder

***Apple. “the (book) document company”

Hello Gary,

I thought I would pass this on to you in case you hadn’t seen it
yet. It seems that one of the announcements made by Apple at their
San Francisco Mac World conference this morning is a service through
which any Macintosh user can assemble their digital photographs
along with text to create a a book “printed on acid-free glossy
paper and bound in an elegant linen cover”.
<http://www.apple.com/iphoto/book.html> Supposedly books will be
delivered approximately one week after they’re ordered.

I have not yet heard any details about the technology being used,
but my first guess was that it may be some variation on the
PerfectBook technology recently developed by Jeff Marsh. Or is it
something completely different? Interns with hot glue and DeskJet
printers? All the other book-on-demand services I know of have
small minimum runs, but Apple allowing one-offs. So many questions.

Whatever the case, this is an exciting idea. Imagine the ability
of anyone with a Macintosh to produce a thin case-bound book of
high quality for $30! I can easily imagine this service turning
into a channel to quickly and affordably create one-of-a-kind
artists books. The wheels in the mind start to turn

-Seth

(the post-digital surge of the return of the print book is underway)

surge to machine book vending

The High Tech book Vending Machine arrives
Posted at 7:06AM Friday 30th November 2001 by b2b newsdesk

Oxford based, book.stop have placed 25 “up-market” book vending
machines and plan 4000 more in the UK market. book.stop are
headed up by MD, Phil Rattray, who commented that these
machines will stock 30 or so of the best selling paperbacks and be
on duty in hotel lobbies, airports, libraries and hospitals, 24 hours a
day/365 days a year and accept cash or credit cards.
(more)

***”What is wrong with this picture? Morbo demands an answer!”
FotB (to no one’s relief) will be providing
comments on the
Text-e Symposium position papers. And (again, to no one’s relief) FotB continues its weird query on
Legibility in Book Art.

awesome virtual conference concerning FotB

“An extraordinary online event — of interest to anyone involved
in books, writing, libraries, digital text, ebooks, online video,
“information”, econferencing, or the Internet or the Minitel or a
lot of other things — is taking place right now and over the
next few months at,”
http://www.text-e.org

“Roger Chartier, Stephen Harnad, Theodore Zeldin, and many other
luminaries, discussing “texts” and various favorite subjects
even Jason Epstein, talking about and discussing (with you!)
“Reading: The Digital Future” and Umberto Eco, opining on
“Authors and Authority”, and wondering, “Do intellectuals play
the role of a Web – filter?” ”
“And everything is free – of – charge. Participants / viewers /
you can download free ebooks, watch free videos, and take part in
open online discussions with other viewers and with the
“speakers”: just think, Roger Chartier and Jason Epstein and
Umberto Eco, answering your questions and arguing with you about
“the decline of the book” and “etexts” ”
(is this cool..or what? FotB [Pour l'Ètude du livre dans toutes ses transformations] has been linked from the text-e symposium site)

FotB is two years old

This site began posting at the turn of 2000. Thanks to Craig for his hosting, encouragement and endless guidance this Manila site has been a real pleasure. Thanks also to each reader! “Keep tuned” as 2002 promises a surging return of the future of the codex!