recalibration
Collection storage environments are monitored in terms of relative humidity and temperature. Collection response to environment is then surmised based on those recordings. Another approach is to monitor collection response directly and correlate those recordings with ambient air recordings.
Effective instrument probes and analogous metrics are needed for direct recording of collection response to environment. Such configuration is suggested by measure of free moisture content in collection items. Trends of aspiration and absorption, driven by out-door and indoor events as well as by seasonal cycles of heating and cooling, will influence free moisture content.
Initial evidence from such an experimental recording program illustrates elegant seasonal fluctuation in paper based collections. Further instrumentation with metrics as discrete as those of air rH and temperature monitoring is needed. This may permit tracking of lags or other relations in the two recording programs.
At issue is the possibility that some types of collections are self-buffering while other types are not as they experience fluctuating air tempered environments. By extension some types of collections, such as those of non-paper media, are a greater risk from seasonal drift and sudden shifts. By extension a monitoring program based on direct response of collection commodities can better prompt protective actions in terms of risk.
FotB for credit
The Future of the Book seminar is marching on. The first and second sessions addressed the future of reading and the future of book identities. Book readers are diversifying as delivery formats diversify, but the hardware of this diversity has a beginning and an end. The hand held reading devices, starting with the papyrus book of later Antiquity, appears to have completed its service for book reading with the dedicated “black” devices such as the Kindle and nook.
Likewise in the second session, the book identities have been allocated to print or screen. Embodied books, of single titles directly projected to corporal display, identify print. Advocate print readers mention the smell and feel and the consequence of knowing which stranger is reading what book on the subway. Un-embodied books, projected to momentary display on screens, are advocated by readers who look at the story or content alone. They disparage digital rights management since the story should flow freely across devices and they disparage cost since e-books should be almost free.
Cody discussed the connection between zines and bicycles to illustrate embodied conveyance. No one offered a similar simile for the screen. Two more sessions will follow. They are the future of book production technologies and the future of book mediation by authors, librarians and publishers. This University of Iowa course on the Future of the Book may be a first. It is given academic credential as book studies, history of 21st century media. It is a history of the present moment. We are 11 students for credit and as many auditor participants.
prairie books
We are off to an Omaha LitFest for a workshop “Story of the Book” to assist teachers who want to use book making projects. There will also be two panel discussions of topics of book arts and book futures. Something about the book influx or in flux.