hybrid strategy
Maybe local utilization was always inherently mismatched with local print while wider, electronic demand for print is also inherently mismatched with local print. In the first case demand was too narrow and in the second case demand is too extensive. It is beside the point that electronic access and ILL delivery can supply the needed response from somewhere. The challenge is justification of maintenance of local print collections that are both too large and too small.
Physical collections should not necessarily be managed as if they were electronic collections. It is only recently that we can even conceive of them or transact their access in that way and there are features of physical collections that have no counterpart in electronic access. For example, physical collections have overt content; you can confirm what is there and you can confirm what is not there. They also differ from their electronic simulations in features of navigation, legibility, persistence, authentication and display constraint. Another obvious difference between print and screen resources is that physical collections require physical space and electronic collections require electricity, display facility and connectivity.
Whatever the consensus on their maintenance, we should probably not accept a premise of simple equivalence of print and screen delivery of research library books. Given that condescension there is still the question if both print and screen collections need somewhat equivalent maintenance as a strategic hybrid library service or should one kind of collection prosper at the expense of the other? This is like the outdoor parka that is 60 % synthetic and 40% natural fiber: even as the percentages shift we can still advocate for hybrid strategy. It is appropriate at the moment.
niche
Bob Stein talks with Dan Visel and opens an immense niche. While engaging a great interview session in the Voyager tradition, the back story plays out. Here the history of the future of the book becomes the mandate so long in limbo for the Institute for the Future of the Book.
…ok, ok…
Kindle 3 has wi-fi, black chop sticks contrast, and battery shelf life. But most interesting is return from diversions of i-Pad. The Kindle 3 remains constrained by the attribute of the constraints of print. That decisive stance can also reflex back to attribute of print itself and an exact interplay well suited to Amazon. Books still have thickness…of one third of an inch.
(Kindle and nook remain fulfillment devices; the retailers don’t care if you read books as long as you buy them. There may even be a clever reverse relation here as retailers induce more alluring single click book purchase habits that are fully decoupled from any book reading.)
century
“In 2010, Ox-Bow is strong. Ox-Bow’s programs and classes are up to the highest educational standards, our students and our artists in residence are making compelling, challenging, and innovative work, and our facilities continue to improve, while maintaining the historic nature of the campus. With a deep and constantly resonating connection to our past, a sense of pride and excitement for our present, and the knowledge that this special place will exist and continue to fulfill the core of its mission, we invite you to join in celebrating 100 years of history, 100 years of artmaking, and 100 years of changing how artists see the world.”
In 2011 OxBow will again host Paper and Book Intensive and PBI will be there for the next two years beyond. So PBI and OxBow begin to invigorate each other again as they did in the early 80’s. PBI, strange to say, once managed to engage hand papermaking, hand bookbinding and permaculture of literacy without cell phones, wi-fi, hand-held reading or real toilets. That will not happen again, but perhaps Richard will return to reteach Tango.
unplup your books
Library circulation statistics may miss this back current of desk-top imaging. The threshold is there for a reason; to give us that moment to realize an interdependence of print and screen.