futureofthebook.com

FENG SHUI TIP #280:

“One of the most common sources of stagnant chi in an environment is an item many people can hardly bear to part with: BOOKS.

An added benefit is that after editing your collection, you will be able to arrange the remaining books in a more beautiful and harmonious manner.

(from Tranquil Spaces via Lorraine Olley)

HPS up and running

The Historical Printing Studio is officially opened and ready for class sessions, tutorials and student project production. Larry Raid will be scheduled for his fourth two-day tutorial on the UICB Linotype during next spring semester. There are various prospects for the HPS. For starters, the UICB is the only university based book studies program with a working Linotype machine and, just as importantly, an expert instructor on Linotype setting and casting.

This 20th century technology for the production of books and daily newspapers has relevance not only to book history and book art students, but also to students in journalism and communication studies. The Linotype will also play into UICB projects including the current project in book writing and book vending now underway by Emily Martin. Emilyís project even opens the way to a genre of ìretro-zinesî in emulation of the traditions of Mexican street printing and the domain of comic books. Of course, the Historical Printing Studio also bolsters our UICB core discipline in letterpress crafts.

strange and alluring

Make Ready has kindly linked to FotB.

not linearity of the text

The final UICB project of Julie Cobb and Craig Kelchen illustrated the multi linear possibilities of the paper book. Their many codex equivalent structures managed all the creativity that the collaborating writers could produce.

Within codex books a strict linearity of the print medium is a fiction. The book opens and reopens at a different place, and once there, the pages face each other in a confronting spread. A scroll may fit the concept, but a book doesnít.

In my view, the Cobb/Kelchen project is an exemplar for what a UICB final project should be; a project that integrates skills of authorship, papermaking, printing and bookbinding into a prospectus for the future of the book.

how to start a Greek endband

As Shanna pointed out, the way to start a Greek endband is with a big rubberband. And even before that you must prepare the cores. The strands of the cord must be separated, pasted and tightly retwisted by swiveling on one leg of your old Jeans. When the cores are tightly twisted the stitching and bridging from the board to the text is simple. Such insight is peculiar and normal to a real craftsperson.

(photo of one of Shanna Leino’s travel journals)

true story of the CMR

Ten years ago this
innovative book repair was designed by Craig Jensen, named by Carol Kent and put into production by Gary Frost at BookLab.

***Silvie muses over Shanna Leino’s model of an Armenian Book

a real hybrid

Silvie Merian of the Morgan Library offered two wonderful presentations on Armenian book making at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. She described the iconographic creativity and ecleticism and the structural conservativism that distinguishes Armenian bookwork.

For the bookbinder, the Armenian exemplar is facinating as it uses neither the raised cord method or the simple stitch chain method of sewing. Armenian books feature a reinforced chain stitching with light cords seated in deep chisel cuts. Is this exemplar a transitional type or a divergent hybrid?

(photo by Kristin, visit her very readable and wonderfully informative
Blue Oak blog)

sudden scrapbooks

Will the
Fast Scrapbook movement also breed a Slow trend?

strange normality

The psychology research into reading skills focuses on handicap and disabled readers. Emerging reading habits are considered at the
Reading Lab including the AirBook.
Readability research that addresses comparative legibilities of the various modes provides more literature on the topic of the future of the book.

taxonomic cut

Here is a system for identification of bookbinding structures, both old and new. This system is based on the type of cover to text attachment. To use this system we ask; ìIs the cover to text attachment exactly at the position of the folds of the endpapers or is the attachment set back away from the folds?î
(more)

more on shabby chic

The shabby chic fashion trend has extended from
scrapbooks to bathroom fixtures.

“For the Shabby Chic look, I have used soft white and pastel pink centered pansies to grace this lovely sink. Soft pastel green floiage accents the flowers. The main bouquet seems to sprout from the main drain and two small bouquets accent either side of the taps. “

no comment

“This is the last issue of The Technology Source that will be published by The Michigan Virtual University. Until further notice, the journal will be archived at http://ts.mivu.org

tangible systems and digital counterparts

” I’m intrigued by the process of becoming intimate with technologies of the past, so that I can gain new perspectives regarding their younger siblings. Through making with both obsolete and new technologies, I explore individual and social relationships, and our symbiotic relationship with innovation. My affection for typography, and for information systems surfaces in a dangerously nostalgic view of technologies past — for example the letterpress and library card catalogs. I balance this nostalgia with a desire to create digital environments that utilize our moods and feelings in order to promote emotional intelligence and life beyond the computer screen.”
Amanda McCoy Bast

***Q. So what’s the future of the book in a digital age?

A. “Everyone thought that when the computer came along this would replace paper, but in fact the opposite has occurred. There has been an explosion of paper. So one of the things that you quickly learn about the computer is that it is a medium that invited speculation because it appears to have so many possibilities. But almost always these speculations prove to be so perversely opposite of what you expect; we can only sit, watch, wonder, and keep our fingers crossed. That’s one of the delightful things about it.”
Douglas Holleley

its the reading mode

“I was having a discussion with a friend who teaches undergraduate English and composition classes at Emory, and she mentioned off-handedly that the part of one of her “get to know the library” assignments that the students really enjoyed was using the microfilm. My jaw dropped and I demanded to know more. Apparently all of the “future generations, yet unborn” for whom we’ve been doing all this preservation work have gone and gotten themselves born. And they seem to be grateful!” Jacob Nadal

I love your narrations of student interest in microfilm. Because we now have a generation well skilled in screen based reading, they are well impressed with film projection. They are only disconcerted by the
non-digital features of the platform and display. These students are totally not disconcerted by back lit representation or by the transforming scroll rendition. They are probably even amused by the scratch striations imposed in the positive.

It’s the prevalent reading skills that induce enthusiasm or resistance to a given format. Our job is to keep a diversity of reading skills and an exciting interplay of formats well preserved.

passing of a legend

Wladyslaw “Zeff” Hanover understood the purpose of book making machinery. Regardless of how complex the problem, he always achieved a simple solution. In this way his wisdom followed the exemplar of the book itself; managing complex works in a simple format.