futureofthebook.com

the real American printing press

The platen jobber developed in the United States for flexible short run printing of anything from flour sacks to wedding announcements.

We just installed the 7″ x 11″
Star Kelsey in our Historical Printing Studio (see October 27). The clanking rachet of the ink plate and the spining of the S spoke flywheel of this very press provides the animated backgound of scenes in Gunsmoke. It is a real American press.

Link and image from
Briar Press

early adopter

ìI have claimed that I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone in his house for practical purposes; I will now claim ñ until dispossessed ñ that I was the first person in the world to apply the type-machine to literature. That book must have been The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I wrote the first half of it in 72í, the rest of it in 74í. My machinist type-copied a book for me in 74í, so I concluded it was the one. That early machine was full of caprices, full of defects ñ devilish ones. It has as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues.î (unpublished autobiography, 1904, Mark Twain) (see
Paige Typesetter)

remarkable new book

A Splendor of Letters, The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by
Nicholas Basbanes, Perennial paperback, 2003 is a remarkable book. To begin with there are over 400 pages of the epics of libraries and books. These epics of destruction and replication include the heroic story of John Dean at Cornell and the effort to save Cambodian libraries and archives.

Another stupendous feature of this book are its haptic and audio-kenetic characteristics. It is an incredibly pliant and noisy book. The docile, right-grain text paper and limp cover wrapper stock enables the book to be easily fluted into a scroll. It is so flexible that any given opening can be draped around under the reading page. But it is the noise that really enters a new sensory domain. It is an extremely loud book producing sharp, squeegee cries as the book is flexed. Is this a cold tack phenomenon, alternately gripping and releasing?

Extremely docile, right grain books are becoming more prevalent. Perhaps publishers now feel that the norms of a stiffer handle are no longer needed. But now lets see how all the screeching will enter into the reading experience. Or is this sound from martyred librarians and, therefore, peculiar to the meaning of this book alone?

62,000 rare books in fire

Almost 30,000 books have been lost in the
library fire in Weimar, Germany. A salvage effort is in progress. (New York Times, 11.20.04)

all of your base are belong to us

A Google literature data
base with links to whole text.

“Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.”

“The scholarly search effort continues Google’s aims to probe even deeper into content available online and offline. Last month, Google expanded a program that invites publishers to scan their books into the search engine’s index, enabling people to peek at the contents online before deciding whether to buy a copy.” (CNN.com)

make your own books

“Festivals of Light: Making Books for the Holiday Season gives you six complete bookmaking projects for the holiday season: Festivals of Light Accordion Book, Festivals of Light Triangle Book, Dreidel Book, Seven
Symbols of Kwanzaa Book, Twelve Days of Christmas Book, and Diwali Rangoli Book.”

save that book!

A
perceptive essay by Jonathan Spence.

literature in cyberspace

“If you have enrolled in this
class because you think, since it’s online, it will be easy, I need to dispel that illusion immediately. Generally, internet courses are reading and writing intensive. Since we do not meet physically and have no oral discussion, you have to read what I would normally tell you in lecture, and you have to write what you would normally ask or say in class. This means that you will be reading a great deal more for this class than for a standard one, and you will also be writing a great deal more. “ Bill Lavender

FotB gets an “anti-cyberculture” rating in this class. Yipee!

Evelyn in the woods

Speed reading in the screen based mode is going to need the reading skills of the parent modes combined. But here is a good
synopsis of the challenges and skill needs for the screen-based reader.

“Quite a lot of research has been done on readability, and many of the findings seem contradictory. This puzzled me at first, but then I realized that readability and legibility are slightly different. Most people use these terms interchangeably, but I now distinguish legibility as referring to only a few letters or words, while readability refers to a whole text.” Dennis List

Journey
into the head of Dennis List.

“Before you begin : if you must read from a computer screen (as you might be doing now) you could try to make it easier for yourself. Whatís most readable on paper is not so on the screen. Banish that impostor Whizzy Whig! Iíve been investigating ways of enhancing readability by adjusting browser settings, magnifying moonlight, invoking inspissation, and sundry other devices. Donít laugh – itís the only useful information on this entire web site. It badly needs updating, though – maybe I’ll do it soon.”

Dennis is addressing one part of the unaddressed ergonomic of comprehesnion and the role of the print book as a cultural tool. Wonderful.

print books and e-books intereact

A circulation study of books available in both print and e-book formats (LRTS, October, 2004) suggests that an interactive use is emerging.

“Of the titles that were used in print or e-book; 39% were used in both formats. suggesting that some patrons may be using e-books and print books for different purposes; for example, an e-book for quick reference but a print book for intensive reading.”

Such an integrated reading behavior, rather than preferential single format reading, is in accord with the FotB premise of synergistic multiple reading modes. An additional implication in circulation studies is that a hybrid access method of e-book query and print book resolution maybe emerging in libraries.

publish your own book with handy template

Do you like to write stories, essays or poems? Would you rather express yourself through visual media like collage, drawing and graphic design? Have you ever thought about publishing? The UI Center for the Book and UI Libraries are collaborating to offer students an opportunity to self-publish their work with the ìYour Book Here!î book template.

Created by UICB adjunct assistant professor Emily Martin, the ìYour Book Here!î book templates are available for purchase ($2.00 each) in the Book Drop vending machine in the North Lobby of the Main Library. These interactive templates give you step-by-step instructions how to construct a folded sheet miniature book. Templates will be available after November 15th.

ìWith books, I can better involve my viewer, I can combine words and images and I can present multiple scenes or views in a single work,î says Emily Martin. ìI like the complexity that working with books allows, the materials, the forms, the content all working together.î

Once you have created your book, you can submit the book master for mass production. If your work is chosen, students in the UICB will reproduce your book to sell in the Book Drop. Selected productions will be acquired for the permanent collections. Those works not selected will be returned to the authors.

In addition to the ìYour Book Here!î kits, the Book Drop vending machine is stocked with a selection of items including Ethiopian bookbinding kits and handmade journals. Items range in price from $2 to $15. Aramark Incorporated provides the vending machine and technical support for this project. Income from the sales of the books and kits benefits the UICB.