futureofthebook.com

FotB, a cited awful blog

awfulblogs has an excellent critique of our Future of the Book waystation for disturbed advocates of the paper book. The reviewer was motivated and many of the observations are consistent with known facts.

A magnificent FotB reader responded. “As one of the dullard librarians who reads this Future of the Book blog on a regular basis, I have to agree with you, it is not safe for the average reader. This blog is often not safe for the exceptional reader. Based on my conversations with likeminded librarian dullards, there are few that truely comprehend all that Gary Frost (author of said blog) has to say, but we know we are in the presence of greatness when he says it.” Yippee!

Pioneer Book Kits are great home schooling projects!

The Nauvoo Trail Journal and Amana School Book kits commemorate Midwestern book production of the 19th century. These project kits, suitable for young adults as well as students of book studies, provide an exciting craft experience and a durable keepsake of the lessons of history.

The Nauvoo Trail Journal represents books carried by Mormon pioneers during their emigrations to new homelands in the West. The materials, hemp cord text sewing, leather and decorated paper covering accurately represent the book production at Nauvoo Illinois during a period in the 1840ís when this settlement was a center for Mormon publications. These books went across the wide prairies.

The Amana School Book represents books made by German immigrants who established their industrious communal Colonies in eastern central Iowa. The materials, vellum strap text sewing, cloth and decorated paper construction accurately represents book production in the later 19th century in a historical setting in which printing and binding was accomplished independently in each small town across America.
Iowa Book Works

future of the book entry

Discussions of the future of the book frequently contrast paper books and digital books or e-books. Since all books are now produced digitally, such comparison is not as useful as comparison of books presented on paper and those presented on the screen.

The role of the ìe-bookî device remains unclear. Various hand held electronic devices such as the Rocket Book and Softbook are no longer supported and extended reading at a PC is not popular. There is surprising evidence that the cell phone display is a possible incubation niche for the e-book.

Another factor to consider is persistence of individual books into the future. Only eye legible books on materials such as paper, as compared with those transmitted by code on computer media, have proven their capacity to survive centuries and even millennia.

Paper and screen book comparisons must also encompass interface engineering, library services, consumer web devices, book studies programs, economics of book publishing and technologies of book production.

The persistence of the paper book in a context of digital delivery is considered at www.futureofthebook.com while topics in the academic, technical and social implications of a transition to screen based books are considered at Institute for the Future of the Book.
(Wiki entry draft)

book networked, book multimediaed

It occurs that the new dynamic of networked books is stretched from an old dynamic of new readership. The individual kaleidoscope of reception, interpretation and response will continue to pace and even haunt changing reading devices. And this metabolism is well downstream from authorship, production, distribution and reader selection where many of the dichotomies of the paper based and screen based books are discussed.

Perhaps the classical multimedia achievement, in terms of paradigm shift both technically and intellectually, was the 19th century illustrated book. Multimedia imposes reiteration in disguise. Paradoxically, such duplication multiplies meaning. The rotation of a kaleidoscope is in play.

As for networks, the airline network is virtual, over-flying communities and is represented by map imposed straight lines. The railroad network passes overland and through communities and can be encountered as steel track on the ground. Consider the differing potential of the two networks as metaphor to create social context for books and reading and, incidentally, for world peace.

The virtual air travel network has engendered sanitary air strikes and smart bombs without regard for the experience of the communities down on the ground. The ground based railroad network has only connected communities and pacified nations in mutual trade. Which network is no longer relevant? See
Fast track to World Peace.

peace train

The difference between a virtual infrastructure and one that is real is crucial to connecting communities and mediating world peace. While airline networks over-fly the planet, only steel rail links can promote economic interdependence and a disincentive to war. Consider the
vision of a planetary rail system.

Our own
Larry Raid, Linotype machinist, has worked for 34 years with author Craig Burroughs to bring about this modest proposal. Larry’s forthcoming publcation; “The Future of High-Speed Railroading in Southeast Iowa, the USA and the World” will be printed from Linotype composition. Larry calls it “hard copy”.

bound to be free

“The print-on-demand business is gradually moving toward the center of the marketplace. What began as a way for publishers to reduce their inventory and stop wasting paper is becoming a tool for anyone who needs a bound documet. Short-run presses can turn out books economically in small quantities or singly, and new software simplifies the process of designing a book.” Peter Wayner, NYT, July 20th.

The electrostatic copier engine is the invisible infrastructure at work here. Now many generations from its introduction, the high-speed copiers are the new cylinder presses. They prove again that all paper books are born digital.

mission mis-statement

“The Institute for the Future of the Book is developing the tools and philosophy that will guide the form and function of books as they evolve from a print-based format to a digital format.”

Actually, print was digitized in this country in the 1970ís when composition keystrokes were converted from physical cams to code.

For the mission statement to be coherent, the
USC Annenberg Center really needs to say that its Future of the Book Project will ìguide the form and function of books as they evolve from print-based to screen-based format.î But, they would not want to say that because there is no future for “screen-based books”.

So I went to the mission statement of the Institute for the Future of the book. It evokes pathways to transition as well, but the organization must look away from any view ahead for the ìage of printî. It must also look away from a coming post-digital era when digital delivery and network communication will provide no meaningful distinction. The book at its best awaits more opened projection.

advent of the delete key

As regards books, digital technologies and network communication have advanced print reading much more than screen based reading. This is because print reading began with a more refined installed base and was quicker to take advantage of the production and delivery attributes of digital technologies. In addition the print book was already optimized for linear assimilation of conceptual works. Assimilation in screen reading, however, was forestalled by a need for rapid and extensive deletion of presented material. In fact, the advent of the ìdeleteî key itself marked the transition from analog to digital technologies. A simple demonstration of the current inefficiency of screen reading is the Google search. The reading process requires a skill set for rapid deletion or de-selection of results with very little opportunity left for efficient assimilation of concepts. This is a crippling circumstance for screen based reading and it may be endemic.

mindless libraries

Promoting digital ìlibrariesî at the expense of print libraries suggests a malapropism, but supplanting organized, browse-inviting print collections with blank stare, empty search boxes should never occur in a Library. There is a reason they call it “searching” and not “finding”.

“Focused browsing in classified bookstacks, enabling scholars to simply recognize what they cannot specify in advance, remains crucial to advanced scholarship. Google Print [Book Search] will be a wonderful supplement to classified bookstacks in real research libraries, but a terrible substitute.” Thomas Mann

Silly supercessionists are at play with the destiny of knowledge. There is not even enough administrative leadership to consider the multiplicities and promise of interacting print reading and screen searching.

“Online browse displays of subject subdivisions are the kind of things real users would kill to have in Internet searches – but Net search engines simply cannot produce them. This radical advantage is available to researchers only in library catalogs.” Thomas Mann

Read every word reported by
Thomas Mann. The LC administrative agenda is an eerie replay of the sillyness of the Role of the Artfact which also attempted to discredit the role of print. But that was just a conceptual contest. The current campaign to digitize libraries by destroying the classification of books is a physical threat.

Then again, what better place to introduce a new dark age than in libraries? See also
Dark Ages America and
Dark Ages Ahead.

interesting trend

“There are too many books. I receive too many books every week. If the computer network succeeds in reducing the quantity of published books, this would be a paramount cultural improvement.” Umberto Eco

The pseudo book genres are being allocated over to screen presentation, finally stabilizing the continuing annual increase in paper book publishing. Finally paper books can function to convey coherent, complex conceptual works without the burden of producing airline schedules guides, engine manuals or preprints of all kinds.

ìThe sudden and steep drop in the number of new books published in the U.S. last year was surprising,î said Andrew Grabois, a consultant for Bowker. ìYet 2005ís book output was the second highest total of new books ever recorded, after 2004ís record year. The reappearance of limits was the most interesting thing about publishing in 2005.”

live link to paper

Jessica White has the Zine Machine rockin’ with a constant stream of Zines.

***still smokin’

“Michael Hancher alerted me to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s
annual report on what’s hot at the MLA convention. This year, it’s book
history. Yes, I know, the Chronicle said we were hot 15 years ago — so
I guess you could say we’re the Mick Jagger of academia.” Jonathan Rose

what is going on at LC?

“There is substantive evidence, provided by
patterns of statements both from LC
management and from the sources it relies on, that the Library of Congress is striving mightily to
get out of the business of providing systematic access to a large collections of printed books
through the provision of LC Subject Headings (in an online catalog that is not merged with
Google) and through the provision of subject-categorized shelving of actual volumes arranged
according to the LC Classification system.” Thomas Mann

The dark side of digital access is not only the deflections from the role of print in libraries, but deflections from the role of libraries in libraries. And we can no longer hope for enlightened leadership. We can not even hope for a balanced, rational strategy to advance the promise of productive interactivity of print and screen reading.

Shall we now joint together to defend libraries? All power to the reading people!

lively letterpress!

The fun and dumbfounding artistic flare of commercial letterpress is alive at
YeeHaw Industries.

surge

To get a feel for the recent surge in book studies activities go to the
SHARP top page.

“Book history, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education, has become “a particularly hot topic in the humanities and not just in the United States.” The history of the book is not only about books per se: broadly speaking, it concerns the creation, dissemination, and reception of script and print, including newspapers, periodicals, and ephemera. Book historians study the social, cultural, and economic history of authorship; the history of the book trade, copyright, censorship, and underground publishing; the publishing histories of particular literary works, authors, editors, imprints, and literary agents; the spread of literacy and book distribution; canon formation and the politics of literary criticism; libraries, reading habits, and reader response.”

drive-in

Everyone loves to read from the screen. Its just a different kind of reading than reading in a book. But like book reading, screen reading is timeless. The first screen was the night sky. High resolution, wide field. Electronic screens still work best in the dark. Pages in the daytime and screens in the nighttime. Its timeless.

high traffic

TopTen has kindly transmitted the FotB feed amid a high traffic array. I hope our rag-top Jeep can keep up!

“Itís true. Librarians are up to a lot more than you might think. Keeping up with the ever-changing world of information technology, fighting the PATRIOT Act or aiding political protestors, librarians do a lot more than check out books. Copyright, intellectual freedom, public health, historic preservationóname any issue, librarians are involved, somehow, some way.” Kevin O’Kelly

“This is the blog of a company that fell into the publishing industry through the love of feeling an ink-and-paper book in your hands.”

second century pop-up

The Secrets of Judas – The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel by James M. Robinson (Editor of the Nag Hammadi Library) .depicts the symbiosis of scholarship and the surviving codices. The surviving part is especially dramatic and vividly narrated. A must read for book conservators.

name of the rose tour

The
digital library of St Gallen is a wonderful tour, especially for lurkers allured by bookbindings.

“The purpose of the ìCodices Electronici Sangallensesî (Digital Abbey Library of St. Gallen) is to provide access to the medieval codices in the Abbey Library of St. Gallen by creating a virtual library. The project will begin with a two-year pilot to digitally reproduce a selection of the finest illuminated codices at such a high resolution that researchers cannot only work with the manuscripts but also perform detailed (art historical or otherwise) analyses of the miniatures in the codices. Codex metadata (primarily scholarly descriptions of the codices) will be managed in a database system and referenced with the digitalised items through various access mechanisms. All these elements will constitute a single long-term tool for codex research that can potentially incorporate all the information on the individual codices. The tool can act as a partial substitute for direct examinations of the irreplaceable originals, thereby preserving them. At the same time, an intuitive, appealing internet presentation will communicate the medieval codex culture to a wider audience.”

still taking off

E-book readers, like comic book readers, are a wonderful enclave.
Read about their adventures at
Mobile Reader.

“The first prize went to Timothy Yeoh for his concept of “Turnover”: an e-book reader where the screen can be rotated to the back, and while you rotate it, it refreshes the next page, thereby stimulating a whole book with only two pages. Touchscreen capability lets you bend the corner to toggle bookmarks on or off, with a bookmark symbol on the page for easy reference when scrolling through.” (if page 2 could draw on the verso of page 1 with page 3 standing by behind .it just might work.)

Check out the other hand-held e-reading concepts at
PlasticLogic.

HILCC

Hierarchical Interface to Library of Congress Classification can provide rationalized access to electronic collections by simulating the compartments of print shelf location.

“Although online access to catalog data has sped up and improved users’ ability to find and use information about library collections, computer interfaces have, in some ways, reduced the capacity to browse these collections by limting one’s sense of the overall contents of the library. Scrolling through screen after screen of surrogate data is not always a good substitute for moving freely through library stacks, where one’s eyes may catch a broad peripheral glimps of dozens of items at a time, while honing in on particular pieces for one reason or another.” Adam Chandler and Jim LeBlanc, “Exploring the Potential of a Virtual Undergraduate Library Collection Based on Hierarchical Interface to LC Classification”, LRTS 50/3.

2006 ALA/ALCTS/PARS award

Senior FotB Editor Gary Frost has received an annual award and can now define a lost cause theme for his brief administration. Gary has choosen to lament the dissolve of systems of bibliographic organization as a result of on-line searching. Library classification, a vision and daily routine of a millenium of librarians, is now too casually discarded by presumptive technopunks. They are not satisfied to dissolve bibliographical coherency into word frequencies, search terms and tagged images. Oh no, now they must disorganize physical books into shelf location based on size alone with the only key an inventory control software.

Its the 60’s all over again except that the young people are now the forces of regression.

“The diffusion of information through the Internet is more likely to transmit irrationality than rationality. Because irrationality is more emotionally loaded, it requires less knowledge. it explains more to more people, it goes down easier.” Yaron Ezrahi

the ocean of communication

Digital advocates enthused with dynamic change in the transmission of knowledge should consider the implications of their stance. In the knowledge transmission business print has already assimilated and been driven by the digital revolution and is positioned for new behaviors of bionic reading beyond the screen.

Print book publishers are not as backward as electronic reading enthusiasts suggest. The old publishers know they are on a ship on the ocean of communication. There are storms and you need to be on a boat and not in the water.