futureofthebook.com

reading in the digital age

The ars technica
essay and comments adventure into the ownership choices between paper and screen for book reading. False choice. All books are “digital” and DRM format is not relevant; the e-book is still owned by the screen and the p-book is still owned by the paper. The real choice is selection between the attributes of paper or screen. You will never be able to physically compare two e-books side by side or re-read an e-book excerpt quickly twenty years later or self-authenticate the edition in hand four hundred years later. At the same time, the e-book has one click convenience and immediacy to say nothing of its finding and text parsing aids. So which sort of “ownership” is desired? Probably both.

Also reference Jim Baen, Universe and his posting by
Eric Flint.

“But itís all baloney. As Iíve established in earlier columns, it is simply prattle to claim that publishing is rapidly moving from a paper to an electronic format.
No, sorry, it ainít. The overwhelming majority of books written, sold and read are still produced on paperóand while electronic reading is growing, it is growing slowly. (Outside of a few specialty areas, like encyclopedia publishing.)” Eric Flint

awareness

“One of the great evolutionary triumphs that brought our minds to the level of sophistication we now enjoy was the ability to take up more and more information from our environment. But Dennett believes an even greater evolutionary leap came when we began to off-load information TO our environment. He argues that, first through tools, which contain their instruction manuals within them by nature of their design (he gives as an example, the self explanatory hammer), and then through language, we have learned to manipulate the outside world in such a way that it serves as an extension of our minds.” Shannon Moffett,
Three Pound Enigma

This opportunism, or projectile predation, of casting our own consciousness out of body is a perfect template for the book. Moffett mentions exactly that including also “opera scores, photographs and MP3s”. She continues; “Fisher takes the idea one metaphysical step further that ‘although our lives are located in our own hearts and minds, they are also located, perhaps most poignantly, in the space between us’”. Here the template emerges of the latent book between existing books on the shelf. Don’t try this on your Kindle.

google and the future of books

Ever since my first awareness of comparison of paper and screen based books I have been sure that there was real difference. This difference was at least between efficiencies of comprehension, navigational and access methods, authentication, materiality and learning outcomes. A confirmation of such difference, for me, was the presumptive contention of screen advocates that the two formats were interchangeable with all sorts of super-cession pathways. This seems like saying that vertical page presentation is equivalent to horizontal screen presentation or that text is equivalent to graphic.

Robert Darton in an
essay on “Google and the Future of Books” channels the Enlightenment with hope that the interplay of paper and screen books has already been rehearsed. Sustained threads of debate and attentive expression of 18th c. communication set a standard whenever in-expression and short attention span take over. But what if in-expression, short attention span and the ability to disregard are actually new tools for thinking in context with screen reading? Perhaps the fast food paradigm revives the slow food paradigm and both fulfill each other. If quick results incite quick consumption then slow results could revive longer reflection.

Played out, a third possibility is suggested; that there are consequential differences between paper and screen books which act as counterpoint components in a larger transmission ecology. In the end Darton is anxious over a Google domination that could only occur if paper and screen books are interchangeable. Perhaps we should also consider a darker domination where paper and screen books have separate futures, but are both corporately constrained as media of electronic display and print-on-demand. Then only libraries of print masters can forestall that eclipse.

banco cabezadas

An Iowa Digital Library “data bank of endbands” has been
extended by Rodrigo Ortega to include some Mexican examples.

aic certification

I voted no because if AIC develops and assumes a certification service it should authenticate, not a status of education, but a status of practice. Accredited, graduate degree programs already authenticate a status of education. Authentication of a status of practice would test such aspects as business plan, menu of services and their ethical regulation, installed facility base, client and collection relations, contributions to the field, etc.

I also estimate that AIC has plenty to do and missions to fulfill other than certification of any kind. If AIC wants to certify something other than status of practice, it should certify the certifiers or all the formal educational programs.

passive regulation

Librarians are regulators. Just as bank regulators, zoning commissioners and election boards regulate their domains, librarians monitor and authenticate knowledge. When regulators are biased bad things happen, but even when regulators are passive there are adverse results.

Adverse effects from the Googlization of books may prove to be a result of passive regulation of knowledge by librarians. Only after all textual and visual content of books is delivered to the screen will it be realized that (1) non-proprietary library service is almost extinct, (2) access to screen delivered books is suddenly expensive and infiltrated with search omissions and bais (books in poor physical condition are not scanned), and (3) that there is no inbuilt authentication in screen books as was once enjoyed with print.

Meanwhile Googlization rewards every stake holder except libraries. Investment in library classification and preservation and underlying investment of value by paper makers, book designers printers and binders is unacknowledged. And no one appears ready, not even academics, to advocate and fund the continuing role of print as master and back-up for screen delivery.

counter recession

“January 21, 2009 ñ RPI (www.rpiprint.com), a leader in automated, mass-customized manufacturing and fulfillment for the consumer print-on-demand market, today announced that it has set an industry record through the production of more than 1.3 million photo books in 2008. This brings its overall production tally to three million photo books since the productís launch, representing a 60 percent year-over-year growth.”

The POD machine is also advancing as indicated by the next generation, 4 color Expresso. This assembly is now smaller than the old Docutech. These will soon be propogated to near-endusers. The paper book unlike the screen book is not starting from a zero base. Curiously the sector now grows as it contracts, and the products are monographically much better positioned. This is the future of the book as contrasted with the SiFi book of the future.

Meanwhile printing plants are economy buffered with conversion from off-set to copier production. “The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press delivers 120 high-quality four-color A4-size pages per minute for customers in general commercial, direct-marketing, photo merchandise, and book and publications printing. For high-print volume customers, the HP Indigo 7000 offers a total cost of ownership that significantly increases the break-even point of digital against conventional printing.” Fiscal 2008 was the best year ever for HP Graphics.

midwinter

You can start by saying that Google Print has not impacted preservation at all and then go on to describe all the ways in which it has. It turns out that an exterior activity is changing the name and nature of preservation.

There is the mechanical processing including the staging. Here the high density storage building can change its function to act as the trans-shipment point, a vital link in the paper to screen reformat. This same processing moves in reverse creating a different ìbrittle booksî backlog based not on deteriorated paper but on features of scanner de-selection.

Another revamping emerges as image authentication and full text verification is relegated to the end-user. The long legacy of Preservation department microfilm Q.C. appears to have been eclipsed. The very precept of self-authentication of print, as contrasted with their screen images, appears discounted.

This issue is much larger than books alone. Authentication has larger importance as touch-screen voting and computer managed third party investment derivatives have demonstrated. Systems of governance and finance, as well as research library resources, require self-confirming values. The copy confirmed by the preservation department could include a colophon beyond use of stable media. The colophon could also say; ìauthenticated against a known and safely retained exemplarî.

Finally there is the change of name. Preservation department is politically weak. ìLong-termî access department is even worse, suggesting all that is conveyed is old stuff. The live on-line resources are not encompassed. Perhaps the new wave name is ìsustainable accessî department. That would be SAD as is the discard of ìlibraryîname.

story of the book

Everyone knows that books tell stories. Less known is the story of the book itself. There is the story of its invention, the stories of the technologies used to make books, and the stories of the people who make books. There is also the story of books making history. These are all great stories and exciting adventures.

The codex, our familiar book with pages and covers bound along one edge, was invented in late Antiquity. This was about two thousands years ago. In Asian cultures the codex came from scrolls folded back and forth and in Western cultures the codex came from scrolls cut into square pieces that were folded.

Why did these inventions happen? That story is a mystery with many clues. The codex is easier to read in windy weather or on travels in open country. There is also a connection with writing letters. Every letter needs two readers and writing and reading skills spread as sending letters became popular and important. Emails are the letters today and books today are really long emails.

Books are machines, or, as we call them, technologies. All cultures in all times have technologies and all technologies are difficult to understand in detail and use well. Technologies of three P’s, (papyrus, parchment and paper) have been used to make books. We are familiar with paper, but do you also know how papyrus or parchment is made? Do you know how paper is made? Do you know about new technologies of book making like electronic ink? The alphabet is also a book technology. How does the alphabet work and why are the characters of the alphabet in a special order? Can you make your own alphabet?

Who makes books? Usually the people who make books are a secret. We don’t know the names of people who made old books and we don’t know the names of people who make books today. We know the names of authors who write books, but, for the most part, we don’t know the names of people who make books. Isn’t that strange? Stranger still, a book maker is a kind of author. Sewing the pages of a book is similar to reading a book. Do you want to try?

We count on books. We depend on books to tell us about times past in history and tell us about our own times. Everybody once lived in modern times, even people a thousand years ago. Old books prove this to us and make it easier to understand problems today. Librarians work to save old books and keep them in order on the shelf. Then historians come along and write more books about books in libraries. Books are in the middle of this circle.

Everyday is a story even if it is only one word. If you put the day stories together you can make a journal or scrapbook. Everyday is both real and imagined because it belongs to you and to everyone else at the same time. That is pretty exciting. So making books can be an adventure and part of that adventure can be years later when you re-read your book or when new friends see your book for the first time. You can make the next book on your computer. You can read your next book on the computer screen or print it on paper or do both.

video to book

“FlipClips’ books are like old-fashioned flip books: quickly flipping the pages creates a low-tech animation. What’s different about FlipClips, is that consumers can create their own books, simply by uploading a video to the company’s website. 15 seconds of digital video converts to 75 flippable pages.” (from Olivia Primanis)

One of the “transforms” from digital imaging turns out to be the flip book. Pause a moment to remember the penny arcade with its view scopes and crank handle activation. Inside was a giant roledex flip book. Authentic steam punk. Now they return to provide a refreshing, portable, energy efficient, real optical video.

“Now your home videos truly spring to life.”

dead tree

A recent e-mail subscript said; “Please, Consider the Environment before printing emails or attachments”. Exactly; consider if a printout for off-line reading may be more energy efficient than on-screen reading. This measure is discussed lately at
Rough Type and the greater environmental impact is (guess where).

Another recent inversion was the acquisition of a born digital conference proceeding for the Preservation department. More efficient to printout and bind the PDFs (the Kilgarlin
Grey to Green) than assure its long term access in the digital repository.

aic certification

Here is a good idea. The Code of Ethics is a template. It is used to guide actions. Why not create a Certification template as well? This template would be used by individuals to measure their own educational advancement. The Certification template would define the scope of the discipline and its component skills and it would state that definition for everyone. The Education and Training Committee could compile this template. Some of the resources, such as the book and Paper Catalog are already there.

ìPerhaps all this energy over certification would be better directed towards coming up with a definition of our profession that is “certified” and marketed to all of our conservation “clients.” Exactly, establish a Certification template equivalent to the Code of Ethics template.
îthe AIC could “certify” qualifications acquired by the applicant from his training program and also his good standing with the organization.î Exactly, certify the certifiers.

It must be considered that conservators of artistic and historic works know something of their consequence for transmission of culture. The standards of appreciation and practice are beyond any individual and anyone who imagines that Certification is sufficient qualification is not focused on the challenges imposed.

And what high horse and stack of bibles is AIC climbing up on? Let’s mind the grocery store and assure ever better meetings, publications, educational opportunities, efficient training and graceful methods.

graceful, poised

Convivio Bookworks

touch screen, touch page

Imagine a readers’ interface in which sweeps, pinches and finger cursor tracking is supported. Revolutionary touch screen applications begin to simulate the fundamentals of the paper book. Meanwhile
Chegg follows the better interface. Evidently students also understand ergonomics of comprehension.

granularity

The conversion of serials from paper to screen appears less consequential than the dissolve of serial format. Now journal articles float away from their volume and issue and publishers may soon discard the print era formats. An even larger issue may be the role of serials as precursors to scholarly monographs. Here the reformat may yet occur, but so far scholarly monographs remain in print as the format of record. Ever see an academic book published as an e-book?

The relations of manuscript and print may be in play here, but even this threshold may not hold. Screen reading advocates are oblivious of any such granularity and that naivetÈ can put them at a disadvantage. In this regard print advocates are better prepared for the future.

foundations, grabhorn and codex

Two foundations,
Grabhorn Institute and Codex Foundation are dedicated to young bookmakers and their advance in rough times. Both are in the fine print legacy region of San Francisco.

methodology

We can contrast the presentational attributes of screen presentation with attributes of the physical book in a cohesive methodology. We can catalog the transactions including book-to-book, page-to-page, opening-to-opening, turning-to-turning and pacing-to-pacing as they are experienced up-front and on the screen. We can consider a wider field of meaning for each work of book art.
(more)

south by southwest

BookLab II has a new look with a great scroll of coverage on the top page. Its an important portal for the book arts community.

divider

The AIC Certification proposal appeared assured of membership certification. The uncertain appeared a fringe 15%, and we all, separately, cringed with a sense of isolation. Now, on the listserv exchanges, we appear to be thoughtful dissenters that are suggesting resilience and self certification in a busy world. Perhaps discertification unites us.

hybrid book

“Please join us, a diverse group of artists, designers, educators, publishers and collectors, to discuss the potential of book arts and its multi and interdisciplinary dimensions and to experience examples of this art that are sure to please, excite, move, and confound.”

Just now in the intermingling of book arts educators at the
Art, Fact and Artifact conference, we can also anticipate the
Hybrid Book conference at the University of the Arts. Will the book be a plug-in or true hybrid, electric in town and combustion on the highway? And what about the highway infrastructure of cultural transmission?

Over 230 book arts educators showed up for the present event. This must be a sidebar to the amazing growth of SHARP as all kinds of advocates for the wider future of the book layout their agendas and working careers.

gaming

“There is no other medium that produces so pure a cultural segregation as video games, so clean-cut a division between the audience and the non-audience. Books, films, TV, dance, theatre, music, painting, photography, sculpture, all have publics which either are or arenít interested in them, but at least know that these forms exist, that things happen in them in which people who are interested in them are interested. They are all part of our current cultural discourse. Video games arenít.” John Lanchester from
Lorcan Demsey

Innovative portabilities of the cell phone and video game excursion into imaginary terrain tell us about the advent of new book like experience. The GPS augmented hand-held adventures into physical terrain while the video game examines the lost and found nature of excursions. Paper books have accomplished this guidebook function but electronic media glamorize the travel.

recession prosperity

The third annual
conference on publishing and the social role of transmission. Recession prosperity and resilience is the quirky nature of the book.

story of stories

Saving our stories, Students preserve historic texts to home movies.
(4:34) This is a UT video about the Kilgarlin Center and the Cultural Record.

phone book

It is possible to look at any trend up-side down. FotB has long identified the cell phone as the incubation niche for the hand-held reader, but the issue is not the display technology or even the aspect of legibility. The issue is the physical relation of device possession with the user.

Think of the Bible; the user wants to create a bond of possession with the device and a behavior of direct communication and through that act relate to content. Such a strong motivation of personal connection exemplifies the cell phone as well. Think of the towers and the virtual proximity with separated persons.

Kindle is a connection with Amazon and in that sense an fulfillment device. The e-book application, in my view, is a decoy. The purpose is to establish a behavior of possession and communication. Same with Google Print which attempts to provide a sense of physical possession of print libraries and knowledge.