futureofthebook.com

library loss

As reported, the disaster at Pass Christian now includes
loss of rare imprints and documents. Digital back-ups survive.

Pass Christian was leveled and it is reasonable that the bank vault was only recently dug out more than two months after storm, in which case the wet archives could be molded and difficult to salvage. The items pictured do appear savageable.

WikiTome

Wikipedia is considering a
print version. It will be a best seller.

Meanwhile
Google Print is another pop-up.

if: book

I certainly enjoy this measured on-line
discussion incited by a print book. Effective discussion is engendered because contentions and implications are referenced to a print work which is passively mediating the tangents. This is one option, that screen based reading is an accessory of print in the important sense that on-line discussion follows the print ìlinksî. The thresholding alone, bridging between reading modes and exercising interpretations that collate print and blog, is a promising exemplar of the future of the book.

future of the book future workshop

Syracuse University November 2006
lecture and workshop.

look twice at Sam’s clever setting of his name for the camera (he did not use the letter S) (the answer)

justifying sentences

“The process of putting his fingers on the molded metal letters, feeling their weight, and sliding them along precise rows into words and sentences as he smoked his outsize “Cigar” seems to have annealed him to language as a tactile presence in his hands. The paradigm of typesetting governed his prose writing and his hand writing, resonating with his speaking style.”

Ron Powers from his new book Mark Twain

wiki textbook

FotB likes the
Wiki book model provided that it is used by students to produce their own textbooks. This approach has a number of instructional advantages, the first of which is that students will then be induced to read their textbook.

handheld reading devices

TeleRead blogs across the horizons of portable reading.

very appreciated link

The legendary
Bieler Press has kindly linked to FotB.

Walt in the 1850’s

Whitman making books

A focused
symposium on the interplay of the poet and book production, the University of Iowa will host another meeting of the characters from the wide perimeters of book studies.

ìI sometimes find myself more interested in book making than in book writing,î Walt Whitman said toward the end of his life; ìthe way books are madeóthat always excites my curiosity: the way books are writtenóthat only attracts me once in a great while.î

Did Walt set the title page of the first edition (1855, Leaves of Grass)? You bet! Did he do it on the machine
paper available in the dingy jobbing shop in Brooklyn?
Yep. And print it on an iron flat bed press? Sure and designed the dies for stamping of the binding cover. And managed the engraving of the frontis? And selected the marbled endpapers and gold edge? And specified case construction, stamping foils, sewing? And visualized editions set and cast by machine? And printed on cylinder press? And imaged to the Web?

Learn more as our own FotB editor, Gary Frost documents the structure of 3 intact copies of the first edition.

speeding along the page

Effective Reading Centers offers to teach you the secret of the manual cursor. This innovation, lost since Antiquity, uses a variety of finger cursings to implant the meaning of text to the mind. Unfortunately, it only works on paper er, not on the screen.

reading by hand

The FotB has contributed to an expanding effort to better evaluate artists’ books. Look at the new Bonefolder for this and other expositions of the future of the book.

bike library

Yes, the progressive advocacy of the fullfilment of each person’s potential, so inherent in the mission of librarians, can be conveyed to any social activity. For example, donated bicycles can be reconditioned and “loaned” to those who will use them for transportation. A library fulfills hopes for adancement and understanding and cool bikes.

Our Bike Library in Iowa City is now a wild success. Just stop in and see what an authentic, heathy society can accomplish. As fast as our crew of six can outfit the bikes they are loaned out (from 5$ to 50$ for one year).
Something strange is going on here and sometimes the bike library feels like an enclave formulating the revolution.

grosse fuge

A discovery of the original
transcription for piano by Beethoven, with all his calligraphic accents, punctuations and concussions. Don’t try this with computer media.

“I doubt I’ll see any of them when I go to look at the “Grosse Fuge” manuscript next month. Why should they bother? They can already “access” it on the Internet. But without seeing the real thing, with actual light falling on its scuffs and blotches, will they ever feel the desperate energy of a dying Beethoven, imprisoned in the cavern of his own disability?”
Edmund Morris

This NYT item did miss the point. No such manuscript from today, if produced on non-paper media, will survive undiscovered for the next 200 years.

the other

Vectorizations ñ or the displacement of professionals from production economies into communication/infomatic economies ñ has immobilized second responders. Without abilities to merge with indigenous first responders the recovery response becomes obsessed with its own collapsing and disruptive communication layers and is immobilized into activities such as fund raising, diplomatics, fuel and supplies hoarding, laptop charging, etc. Meanwhile the local indigenous responders become more exhausted and intolerant of vectorized resources.

(why we are not doing well with hurricanes and other pandemics) (see also Neil Postman, Building a
Bridge to the 18th Century)

the truth is out there

Gary Taylor tells of the
prophetic consequence of relapse into cultural dependence on digital ephemera.
(download and print this terrific essay)

the other

Writing is a picture of speech. Printing compounds the picture into a mosaic of pictures that yields larger images. The screen compiles the picture of speech and the mosaics of larger pictures producing a hybrid of written and graphic images. But, so far the screen presentations are not integrated and not as momentous as they seem. Actually they reverse a progression from specific to abstract presentation by mimicking the parent communication modes of speech, writing and print without advancing their efficiency or legibility.

Art-o-Mat in Rivendell Reader

One strange reality meets another with a profile of Clark Whittington’s
Art-o-Mat vending machine empire in the #36
Rivendell Reader of fine retro-bicycling.

The University of Iowa book vending machine now features book folding templates by
Emily Martin and students as well as Zines by
Jessica White.

the truth is out there

Transient Books persists.

“We’ve been up to it again, giving bookbinding workshops in the middle of nowhere. This time in the high sierras near our home here in Argentina. Go here to see photos, books and wonderful faces.”

blurb for a SHARP thread

The outright comparison of the readability of the same page image of text as presented in a print book or on a screen can at least consider legibility, navigation and persistence. Here legibility would not be resolution, but screen drawing times and errors as contrasted with the visibility of the print presentation. Navigation comparisons would introduce manual versus software manipulation. Here haptical considerations embedded in our ability to retain conceptual content as prompted by physical examination plays its role. On the side of screen presentation the mimic of page turning and advancing is perceived as interference to comprehension. Finally, comparisions of persistence overtime certainly favor the print medium.

As a book conservator advocating the continuing role of print in the context of digital publication, I have been considering such comparisons. Digital advocates, especially those imagining the superseding of print, seem to construe changes in communication technology as modification in reading behaviors. If there is a causal relationship it must be inverted. The parent reading modes are at work in configuring technologies such as the cell phone or teleprompter.

beginning end of a SHARP thread

“I just heard on the Belgian radio that Yahoo is going to digitize
American literature that is in the public domain. We have heard the
plans of Google, Chiracs imperative to do the same in Europe etc.

Well, researchers will be able to find a
corrupt quote without having to
walk to the library. Glueing them to their desks will certainly narrow
their views and shorten their lives. People who are in comparative
studies will have a field day, being able to search for the same word in
different texts from different periods etc. and thus create a deluge of
unreadable articles on the smallest particles that can be found in any
literature. But what is in it for the rest of us?”

Paul Dijstelberge
bookhistorian Amsterdam – Netherlands

100 year hardware

We just clebrated 100 years of continuous operation of Bud Lang’s model #5 Linotype. The keyboard array is still twice as fast as a computer keyboard and Larry “hung” the machine for eight straight lines setting three slugs in the time of one machine cycle. (A rate of about 20,000 ems per hour) It was just one celebration at
Linotype University session three.

CALM after the storm

The American Association of State and Local History recently sponsored a mobile damage assessment and response team that toured the coast region of Mississippi providing conservation assistance and grant application support letters (4) to twelve libraries and museums. Members of the September 22-29 team were Joy Barnett, Texas Association of Museums, Ashley Barnett, Fire and Rescue, Burnet, TX, Randy Silverman, University of Utah and myself, representing the Libraries of the University of Iowa. We styled ourselves as a CALM unit (conservation attention for libraries and museums).

Hurricane damage extends into central Mississippi. The coastal regions were devastated by immense storm surges that moved up to six miles inland. These tsunami like waves were reported at heights of 26 to 35 feet advancing in two accumulating surges and receding with further turbulence. We observed surreal beach front devastation along the entire length of the 60 mile Mississippi Gulf Coast. Bridges are gone and remaining roads near the tide water are extremely hazardous.

At the same time the entire southern half of the state of Mississippi experienced severe winds and tornados from the ìstrongî right side of the Katrina hurricane. Many immense inland trees, not tested by such strong winds, came down on structures, utilities and roadways while airborne debris such as highway and street signs caused further damage and dangers.

The coastal regions remained under curfew and military management at the time of our trip. Four weeks after the storm only residents and salvage crews (including ours) are permitted to enter into municipalities such as Bay St.Louis, Pass Christian, Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs and Pascagoula. Needless to say, museums and libraries in these cities are devastated. There is no electricity or water and irregular cellular phone service

The courageous and resilient staffs of these institutions are suffering personal tragedy and many have reached exhaustion. Most have lost home and possessions and are surviving with military and Red Cross supplies. Since we arrived on-location with our air conditioned travel home stocked with ice and refreshments, we were able to invite staff inside for long listening sessions while our assessment and response actions were completed in the buildings.

At one location we could not find the remains of the library building, at another we found the shell of the building, but could not find the books. Many of these libraries contained important local history archives while much of the historical material in the region remains in private family collections whose survival is in even greater question. Surviving materials, regardless of condition, are now even more crucial to cultural preservation in the region.

We have demonstrated collection evacuation, collection stabilization and methods for arrest of mold bloom at the sites visited. We have produced assessments of prevailing conditions and recommended actions at each site. We have composed and advanced letters of inquiry to NEH to provide emergency fundings (up to $30,000 each) for visited institutions with collections at risk and in need of stabilization and remediation. We have de-briefed our activities with a NARA team in the field and with our replacement AASLH team. Our team will also be submitting a separate funding proposal to plan for future, more expedited assessment services such as we provided.

The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library are seriously damaged. While walking around the debris field I noticed a piano high up in a tree with a Confederate flag snagged on the same branch. Just such surreal notes permeate the situation on the coast of Mississippi, offering strange and uncertain implications for the preservation of southern history.