futureofthebook.com

bags and books
The Library of Congress application for encapsulation of file transfers with embedded content check, called a bag, is an eerie simulation of the function of a physical book. This is another illustration that the activity of digital preservation requires a migration of qualities of materiality to electronic content.

“A recent report begins; “Preservation is a core function of the research library.” If so, such functionality deserves honest definition. What if the preservation functionality derives from a relative immutability of the collections? If so the research library must provide safety from unwarranted modification or deletion and an assured organization of items. In essence, this preservation functionality would then spring from a physicality of collections and media even to the extent that physicality is ascribed to electronic resources.” (more)

place based learning
“They describe it as an augmented reality application: objects viewed through the camera may be augmented by data about those objects.” Lorcan Demsey

The cell phone camera image is not just a pretty face. Underlying connectivity and prompts of information and transaction will be linked to every view. This point and click reality suggests the practicality of artificial intelligence augmenting hominid intelligence based on hand-held, but not like an old e-book, reading.

hand-off
The swirl of adaptation from the book template to the hand held device is a counterpart to the swirl of adaptation of the telephone template to the hand held device and the adaptation of the emerged book device with the emerged phone device is still in process.

The audio and video channels appear to converge and separate for handheld devices in commercially complicated diversity. But the communality of the hand held or haptic character of a communication device needs consideration. iPhones and NetBook devices are related by their single user possession, personal portability, bodily proximity and hand held, touch navigation.

But unambiguous possession of a personal communication device contrasts with mutability and transience of self identity on the networks they deliver. Unlike a physical book, these hand held devices no longer assure possession. And the demise of a cell phone user is surprisingly similar to the demise of a cell phone; interruption of connectivity.

finger cursor
The only deterrent to the advance of dedicated reading devices is simulation of physical book navigation. The quirks of page turning application are an example as are purely visual prompts of progression through content are more distractive than reassuring. Perhaps the most disturbing simulation is the suggestion that a single screen can present “a lifetime of reading”.

Haptic and kinetic prompts assist comprehension in the physical book. Classical speed comprehension is based on the use of finger cursor following and, if you watch yourself, you will discover your inadvertent fingering prior to page turning. There is also a response to the “spread” of two pages and the topography of the drape of the gutter and the sense of the reverse side of the visual opening. Do you sometimes scout ahead or reverse a few pages to sense the scope of the narrative?

All such navigational acts are hands prompting the mind via a deeply embedded learning pathway. The research of this ergonomic of comprehension as refined in the physical book is distributed in psychology, robotic engineering and evolutionary neurology.

academic pod
“The cornerstone of Ingram Digital’s offering to academic publishers is CoreSource®, the industry’s most robust digital warehouse. CoreSource ensures that digital content is properly archived, file integrity protected, and versions controlled. It functions as a hub from which the publisher controls the delivery of digital files, metadata, and associated promotional materials to all its partners.”

The aspect of a SHARP pod publication stream (see below) would merge well with a service provider such as CoreSource or Expresso Book Machine (EBM). SHARP could leverage fold-bound book structure (high speed copier imposition in single folios) and many other enhancements bringing improved binding mobility and durability to the larger POD production stream.

pod books

“I started writing as a journalist. In those days, our copy was produced on typewriters, unlike today where a journalist files a story on the computer, and the text is viewed by an editor and sent down to the printing press (soon to also be obsolete, too). In those days back in the 60s, the copy was seen by several people, facts were corroborated, and copy mistakes were corrected, and the story was trimmed to fit the allocated space, all by human hands. Today, after the copy is produced in the computer, it doesn’t feel a human hand on it until the pressman takes the soon-to-be-obsolete newspaper off the press. This new way is, of course, a progression where progress is equated with saving bucks, not necessarily improving a newspaper. It is the same with book publishing.” Jerry

A current thread at the SHARP listserv considers POD problems. These chains of read-right-read-wrong transactions were strung out for a reason. They permitted refinement. For example the Linotype is an excellent composition machine, but a poor writing machine. The story went from typewriter entry, to composition, to line casting, to page lock-up, to form counter casting, to plate foundry casting, to press mounting, to paper printing.

“Why don’t we start a new publishing house in our field under the aegis of SHARP, use all digital technology – that is free and easy to use and at our fingertips – to create books that are good, well-edited and corrected, cheap and well-made? We are all librarians, teachers and professors, book historians. So we can see to it that our books will find their public too. Issuu, Xerox and a little help from Google can open new vistas,
undreamed of by the scholar who hopes for his or her ca 500 copies to be sold.

A publishing house like this would certainly have a standing that is on a par with the great university presses. To be named after one of the founding mothers of SHARP – or Bookiejoint after a great (and funny) bookseller. Theproducts could be far better than most of what we see in the market nowadays for idiot prices.” Paul Dijstelberge

Just as AIC is free of member certification and free to engage the certifying moderation of Conservation On-line, so SHARP in its well founded activities is free to consider POD publication to augment their Book History journal.

leaf master

“With optical scans, voters fill out a paper ballot that is then read by computer — much like a standardized test. The votes are counted quickly and efficiently by computer, but the paper ballot remains the official vote, which can then be recounted by hand.”

New legislation pending will require paper ballots in federal elections. The role of the authenticating paper sounds just like the continuing library role of print in the context of digital delivery.

hybrid book
I scouted around for info on the recent Hybrid Book conference. Like the CBAA annual, these conferences play out the interaction as if the encounters were electronic blogs. This is strange territory. For book artists who have license of the rich legacy of books and some appreciation of qualities of its physical materiality it is dangerous territory.

The hybrid book tangles the wrestling of paper and screen. Someone should mention how bias book artists are to physical products and how dependent they are on virtual screen representation of their products. The best approach may be, taking one example, to define the relevance of letterpress printing to screen drawing and visa versa. Then compound issues of self-authentication of real books could be better hybridized with their electronic delivery.

electronic textbooks
The surge toward or away from electronic textbooks has the same old vectors. These are navigation, legibility and persistence. Persistence is not an issue of centuries, but of a single hour of classroom battery life. As for navigation, the Bible previously was our only un-paginated book, but now e-textbooks pop -up classroom and assignment chaos from lack of consistent pagination and dexterity moves. Then there is legibility, which is not resolution, but immediacy of meaning. Here loading times, cross-volume reference, illustration simulation are sidebars to cooperative role of the text for learning. The immediacy of meaning is migrating to reading, listening and watching activities not delivered by dedicated hand-held devices. (more)

A new book on social experience of technological transition, Kirkpatrick, Technology and Social Power is an amazing study of the social dimension and social theory that actually manages the course of technology. It is relevant not just to textbooks, but to all books. Screen or paper is unimportant compared with transition in the social role of textbooks.

no competition
“Finally, the biggest competitor for E Ink Vizplex is a 500 year old technology called printed paper. Y’know, the kind that you make by chopping down precious forests, trucking the trees to the mill, crushing and treating the trees, generating huge amounts of waste water, creating rolls of paper, trucking them again to a printing press, printing and cutting the paper, crating them onto another truck for delivery. That kind of paper.”

Screen reading advocates are quick to disparage paper as unsustainable. Little do they suspect that the plastic derivative, energy consumptive, toxic manufacturing of electronic display may prove unsustainable in less than 500 years.

unchanging preservation
A recent report (”Safeguarding Collections at the Dawn of the 21st Century”, ARL, 2009) begins; “Preservation is a core function of the research library.” If so, such functionality deserves honest definition. What if the preservation functionality derives from a relative immutability of the collections? If so the research library must provide safety from unwarranted modification or deletion and an assured organization of items. In essence, this preservation functionality would then spring from a physicality of collections and media even to the extent that physicality is ascribed to electronic resources. (more)

off-line
Those who question the premise that a quality of physicality is prerequisite to preservation should note the sudden disappearance of CoOL (conservation on-line). The physicality was vested in Stanford University and ascribed to an awesome web presence, but some mischief occurred. The AIC may manage an emergency cut-over, but that will not bring back Henry’s voice and may not even tether the CoOL mission.

AIC, now released from the certification dispute, is in a good position to manage CoOL. The outreach and public education power of CoOL converges with AIC goals and communication with members and non-members will benefit. There may also be a AIC/CoOL publication channel. Long term AIC/CoOL operation could even clarify the nature of certification in the conservation specialties by lending a wiki authority to the field.

cut-over
FotB has migrated to WordPress after ten years with Manila. We will be looking through a different window.

permaculture
There may be a rendezvous between two enclaves, the technologists developing alternative, sustainable agriculture and those promoting the continuing role of print in the context of digital delivery. Both enclaves regard authentication with persistent exemplars as an engineering pathway.

homestead rocket
The summer season at the Print Shop in Homestead Iowa has begun. Copy and composition is gathering for the 2009 issue of the Homestead Rocket produced with technologies of the 1950’s. Its all very modern with keyboard prompted automation and the latest devotional society news. Volunteers welcome.