futureofthebook.com

wooden board book sampler

The best aspect of the book action of the 16th century wooden board prototype is its exemplary capacity to interplay with the reading experience. Either on first opening or following life long usage the wooden board binding takes a physical part in each conceptual transaction. The mind is physically positioned in the content and memory and insight both are augmented by the physical location of concepts. Fingering to initiate and complete page turnings points to the particular expressions or precepts that are read. Manual transmission of leverage from the board covers to the text is so responsive that it embodies comprehension and conclusive acts.
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Due to limits of extension and development of technique within the existing enclaves of wooden board work we should also imagine an entirely new enclave for 21st century. In this new enclave, wooden board bookbinding would be pursued on its own special merits in pure research toward an ever more graceful and practical bookbinding. Such a practice of wooden board bookbinding would address improvements in the sub-structures of fitting and attachment to the textblock and adaptation of endbanding methods, panel linings and foredge closure devises. Fresh revivals of decorative techniques applied to leather before application to the boards are also needed.

Most importantly the new practice can research and develop elegant book action during motions of opening, closing and page turning. We may still hope, by continuing the long development of the wooden board bookbinding, to fulfill ideals of haptic qualities that ease and invigorate reading.
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(binding model by Bob Espinosa)

scary background music for powerpoint

Library Juice has a page of
bizzare search terms.

short story

“This situation is much worse than then mediocre color permanence of color materials back in the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, you had warning signs that the pictures in your photo album were slowly fading. In many cases you could do something about them such as getting them reprinted or copied.

Ironically, hard copies, whether text or photographs, might be our best assurance that our history will be preserved. The 5.25 inch floppies on which I stored my first book, History and Practice of Carbon Processes (1982) were unreadable by the time I was ready to
convert the files to a new computer format a few years later. Today, although this would be a lot of trouble, I could OCR (Optical Character Reader) the original text and convert it back to ascii files.”
Luis Nadeau

book shape of things to come

In his
LRTS article ìReflectionsÖî, 48/3, July 2004, Ross Atkinson muses as to who the person was who wrote his 1992 LRTS article on the role of the acquisitions librarian in the digital revolution. While the digital revolution in scholarship was early recognized by Ross, it has been late in arriving as regards supplanting print readership or print acquisitions.

Ross admits that he would have been surprised in 1992 to learn that the Cornell acquisitions remain 80% print today. And, to make an Akinson-like observation, that decline indicates an increase. While reference tools have migrated to on-line sources, the remaining concentration of monographs continues to grow. Book publishing in the United States now races along at 4000 titles per day.

Still lacking is an evaluation of the synergy between the print and on-line reading modes; the synergy that is fueling the future of the print book. But, then, that perspective is provided here at FotB.

strange bindery

Emma Jane Hogbin has produced a wonderful variety of hand bookbindings.

doings in Denmark

The Ludlow/Linotype teaching studio is now fully operational with the installation of an 800 pound composing stone. This was placed on its reconstructed galley rack today.
Anna worked with Larry setting on the model 31 while the afternoon
train stopped outside.

paper doll chronicles

“I am an aspiring rare book librarian who believes that the printed word and the digital word are not necessarily at odds, and in this blog I hope to explore this topic further.”
Vernica

This niffty blog has kindly linked to FotB.

fair and balanced

“The Prophet instructed the city marshal to abate the nuisance which he and his men accomplished by breaking into the printing shop, throwing the press into street where it was smashed with a sledge hammer, dumping the type into the street, and burning the undistributed copies of the newspaper.”

While early pre-Christian sects offer the example of the influence of writing and reading of new scripture, latter day sects were also interested in media management. The mid 19th century history of the lower DesPlaines River valley in south east Iowa is particularly interesting. There was
papermaking and printing at Bentonsport. There was
book printing at Nauvoo. Towns and sects were busy validating their visions.

PBI futures

PBI will not be coming to
Iowa in 2005. This makes the PBI future even more interesting.

pulp news

The
DieuDonne website is an adventure. ePulp has just begun electronic circulation.

books before printing

The contract between Heaven and Earth was transacted by scribes with an agenda. For a magnificent story of a diversity of beliefs that were almost lost to disturbances in the chain of scribal transmission and to organized corruption of texts, read Bart Ehrman’s book
Lost Christianities.

“This may simply be due to an accident of history, that our surviving remains are principally textual. But there may be more to it than that, for it appears that most, possibly all, of the groups of early Christianity placed a high premium on texts, making the use of literature a key element in the conflicts that were raging, as members of various groups wrote polemic tractates attacking their opponents, forged documents in the names of apostles to provide authorization for their own points of view, falsified writings that were in circulation in order to make them more acceptable for their own purposes, and collected groups of writings together as sacred authorities in support of their own perspectives.”