futureofthebook.com

readers websites of the world unite

Jeff Bezos
book store is cool and provides a very prominent link to FotB.

Iowa Book Works

Thanks to Craig of
BookLab II fame, the
IBW website now welcomes your visit.

message from library land

“As our library school professors of “Information-Seeking Behavior” can and do tell us, there are many disciplines and professions both in academia and “the real world” which do not do much reading and writing.

I can think of some colleges and universities both large and small, both prestigious and precarious, where reading and writing are increasingly marginalized, especially when bottom-line administrators particularly
resent loquacious librarians fighting a losing battle to get the faculty interested in continuing to have a library that provides more than unassisted Internet access.” Terry Shults

the ebook revolution was the cell phone

Atheist’s Bible, projecting a cartridge on demand handheld reader, has kindly linked to FotB. Unfortunately the book format was the wrong incubator for the screen based reader. It was the verbal/visual reading mode, not the print mode, afterall. We should have guessed the minute that telephone dial entry appeared.

microlit keyboard

Another indication of the emergence of the cell phone as the incubation niche for the transmitted text reading device.
VKB

“The projection system (custom laser technology) projects the image of a full-size keyboard on any nearby flat surface. The detection system (IR Beam and CMOS sensing unit) allows complete detection of user finger movements and keystrokes.”

(link via
Institute for the Future of the Book)

information environmentalism

The e-serenity movement goes beyond data pollution to entertain the link between persistent documents and persistent culture.
Utne

“This effort at stability (and its failure) is at the heart of the anxiety we’re feeling in an overloaded society. If Becker and Levy are right — if culture is an “immortality project” we use to combat our existential angst, and if documents are one of the primary, stable products of that culture — then our anxiety is understandable. And just as environmental degradation disrupts our ability to rejuvenate, Thoreau-style, our psychic selves, information instability and excess short-circuit our ability to cope with our own mortality.”

incubation niche for the hand held reading device

IBM reports that museums are attracted to the idea of moving away from installed interactive displays. In their place explanitory exhibit narration and display will be transmitted to the visitors own cell phone or PDA.

“You don’t want the user to have to focus on any device, you want him to focus on the content.” John Tova, Creative Director, IBM eBusiness Innovation

The unstated assumption here is that the cell phone is taking on the same personal avatar role for transmitted content that the paper book provides for print content. The two distinct reading modes are then poised to complement each other in the context of the museum experience.

By extension, the cell phone and paper book will complement each other in a habitat of personalized communication. Such a future is already here.

That scenario leaves the ebook (a screen based equivalent of the paper book) no where.

The CODEX Foundation

” to preserve and promote fine printing and the arts and crafts of the book. Our mission is educational and in the boadest possible context to bring public recognition of the artisanship and the history of the international civilizations of the book.”

We need living treasures if we want a prosperous future of the book and the Codex Foundation intends to inspire the next world wide generation of fine book makers. The only dark word here is “fine”. Fine is used seven times in the short prospectus.

What is wrong with “nice” printing and “nice” book work? And what about “mean”? Or “bad”?

Memories on Fifth

Iowa Book Works presented its first workshop for the scrapbook and journaling community. Many more book making classes will follow, introducing book arts to an immense new audience. Three popular scrapbook retailers are located in the small town of Coralville, Iowa.

“Learn the legacy and practice the skills of the traditional paper book. Discover how this timeless communication device remains the parent medium of the digital age. Publish your own family story for the ages!”

Good vs. Evil

The discussion of the future of the book should not be polarized. One book format or one book delivery system is not about to replace or supercede another. The scroll and codex live on together and paper and the screen live on together. In addition, reading behaviors are diverse, opportunistic, complex and pliant spanning all resource types. Scholars are admired for their wide reading behaviors and diversified reading skills.

What does position the discussion is the frame of mind which is imposed. For example, increasing use of on-line resources in libraries is appropriately linked to declining access to print collections. In one frame (of simple polarization) this trend indicates the replacement of paper books by ebooks. In another frame (of complex interaction) screen based and paper based resources are interacting for overall research efficiency. In the first orientation the paper book and book-like on-line resources are considered exchangeable or fungible with a connotation of new replacing old. In the second orientation the paper book and book-like on-line resources work together producing an authentic paradigm shift that transforms them both.

Future of the book vs. book of the future? Paper vs. screen reading? Booke vs eBook? Donít polarize! Visualize both working together.

saskatoon saskatchewan

Allison Muri’s course site on the History and Future of the Book features an excellent
bibliography. Which linked to
Matthew Kischenbaum’s
blogsite.

always invigorating

Dave Munger’s
Word Munger is a wonderfully expansive exploration of political developments, perceptual science and communication theory and the requirements needed to explain your own thoughts.

always refreshing

The 2005
Paper and Book Intensive will provide another magical time away from home.

the way to fine forwarding

Priscilla, Olivia and Craig are offering a fine binding
intensive following English methods. This is a wonderful opportunity to experience an authentic traditional skill set. A lifetime lesson for sure.

etaoin shrdlu

Letters running the next rows of the Linotype keyboard can be remembered with the sentence; “Charlie Made Fun With Yellow Pants and Very Bad Girls Kiss Queer Jerks”.

A wonderful book of “Life in the Back Shop” of a letterpress weekly has been compiled from the recollections of over 30 Linotype operators. It is written by Bob Shaw of
Superior Letterpress, Cornucopia, Wisconsin.

early adopter

Crab Quill Press is producing elegant editions using the sewn boards design developed here at FotB.

“Most Crab Quill Press books are bound in one of two bindings: the sewn-boards binding, championed by Gary Frost; and the drum-leaf binding, developed by Timothy Ely.” Ian Boyden