futureofthebook.com

around the (text) block

Librarian’s Corner has kindly linked to FotB.

Gabriel on the power of print

Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress

Oak Knoll Press and The British Library

“The above title, my second work on the iron handpress should be in bookstores in June 2004. Stephen O. Saxe (my editor) and I have worked on this project for more than eight years. In mid-April, Bradley Hutchinson, who set the book at Digital Letterpress, and I hope to have a website up with more information about this work, along with a few pictures. In the meantime, for more information about this nearly 1200-page, two volume book, contact oakknoll@oakknoll.com.

Meanwhile go immediately to Gabriel’s expanded website.

Minsky on the power of print

A google search on “They that can give up essential liberty” just gave me 43,900 results. Two years ago it gave me 20,000. The language did not sound to me at all like Franklin (one of my favorite old timers). Franklin never would have said “They that can.”
(more)

Catch up on Richard’s achievements at
minsky.com

the second future of the book

The second annual Future of the Book conference has an amazing
array of speakers and topics. Evidentally everyone has a view point to share. So much so that a third conference will probably be needed.

real digital books

“I agree with Rocky Stinehour who said recently that we are on the threshold of the golden era of the printed book. After all, we no longer have to wrestle with the limitations of mechanical technologies to produce beautiful books.”

Founded in 1821, Acme Bookbinding has evolved from a hand bindery to library bindery to edition bindery to book on demand manufacturer. Read a
great report from Paul Parisi on the shape of things to come.

book preservation arts

The University of Oregon Libraries has kindly linked to FotB at its
Book Arts page.

page space vs. e-book-clone space

Johanna Drucker faults screen based reading devices for trying to mimic features and not functions of the paper book. Her expert review of the booke/ebook contest is in her paper on
Page Space and Espace.

Page and screen based reading will collate into separate, not merged uses. The traditional book will be renewed by the accessory of the composite screen reading mode; assisting the search and discovery of conclusive print resources. Meanwhile screen based reading will benefit from principles of virtual reading space navigation that are provided by the exemplar paper book.

Then, in a few decades, most people will imagine that the codex book is an invention of digital technologies and that will be somewhat true.

sink or swim?

In the
cascade of the reading modes.

The cascade flows from the top of the page to the bottom, across time. Primary orality, or the verbal/visual mode, is the earliest parent mode. This page top position reflects a time before writing or printing, but such a circumstance has persisted in some societies into the present. And there are indications of atrophy of writing and reading and renewed oral communications. So the mode of orality is shown throughout the cascade. Specific historical episodes correspond to orality in a content of writing and printing, in a context of radio, television and telephone as well as in a post-modern setting.
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paper or plastic?

The Library of the University of Texas at Austin has surveyed readers on their preference for print or electronic journals.

For perspective they should also ask; “If you had to choose, which would you prefer; an electronic version or a paper version of a monographic book.”

twilight of civilization

“I could probably painstakingly fix the PDA by doing some sort of manual rebuild of the software one app at a time or something, but I don’t want to do that. I don’t have a day to spend futzing around with a “productivity” device just to get back to where I was.”

Read about the trials of personal connectivity at
b.cognosco. It was once trendy to carry designer executive paper calendars.

hard copy er, books

Bookbinders are still relevant as high speed printing of pamphlets and books continues in highly computer connected organizations such as the CIA. (from
Kristin)

This job positing profiles the emerging need for a new generation of bookbinder engineers within the growing print on demand industry.

ethnography of scrapbooking

Amanda, a design student at UT Austin, is watching the behavioral and aesthetic inclinations of the
scrapbook community.

The Image Permanence Institue is a source for
scrapbook longevity issues.

booke and ebook in the cascade

Even though there was a period prior to the use of writing and use of the alphabet, studies of a one time transitions from oral societies to documentary societies have much of their allure from remote time and a mythic state of mind.

In a different view, a cascade of multiple and intermingling reading modes persists across time and cultures regardless of the technologies that intermingle them. Such an assumption would position interactions of parent modes of orality, writing and print throughout history and into the future.
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fixed future

(1) The meanings engendered between books are fluid while the interface of the print reading mode is immobilized and confined.

(2) On-line reading transends the parent reading modes providing a fluid composite interface prior to any derived meaning of the content.

(3) Digital technologies of discovery, research and connectivity accessorize printed books, not the other way around.

These and other apparencies to follow as FotB contributes to
Craft, Cuture and Critique.

joint program in book studies

Our own School of Library and Information Science has officially begun a
joint program with the Center for the Book. This program offers the best of both worlds; rare books and books for the future.

ten million books (one at a time)

FotB recently toured
Lightning Source where the print-on-demand crew streams out 18 to 20 thousand books a day mostly single copies. The process from certified transmission to bound book takes three hours.

POD is the future of the Booke. Expertise in image file management, high speed printing technologies and on-the-fly item tracking are all aimed at production of the perfect paper book.