futureofthebook.com

past. present, future

“The explosion of new digital book technologies has paradoxically energized more traditional studies of the book.” Now we will consider the future of the book at an Associated Colleges of the Midwest conference.

divine art, infernal machine

Like the Amazon take-down of the Kindle 1984, there is some consequence and some implication of printing quality for a book on the influence of printing. This is notoriously true if the work in question is the new Eisenstein study; Divine Art, Infernal Machine, The Reception of Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending.

As soon as the first off-set printing was exhausted the continuing demand was met with print-on-demand production. The difference is day and night. The POD production is blotched high-speed copier work with blackened, bold text, dithered illustration, and a glare of fuser. Sweeps of different toner density run in the machine direction. It would be easier to read on an e-ink screen.

The off-set version presents crystal clear illustration and sharp and even text. It is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to contemplate. If ever there was a stark contrast between dry and wet ink printing, this is it. And the consequence is accentuated beyond legibility. How will print convey well in the context of its screen delivery if it does not sustain its own special affordances? Even more disturbing is a violation of reader expectations in context of such a masterly work on the consequence of printing!

poise

“Nobody seems to have touched on one relatively simple explanation for why the percentage of e-book resistant seems to be growing—it’s that more and more people already have an e-reader, so the number of people who don’t want them makes up a greater proportion of those who don’t have them yet.” Chris Meadows

This thought accords with some others in publishing that there is a natural balance of print and screen book interaction yet to be realized. Something like an equilibrium between print and television. The equilibrium would not be based on units sold but on market saturation for each delivery/display method. This could end up with multiple magnitudes of screen units per print units sold yet each sector becomes fully sustainable and neither restrained from full market presence.

bottleneck

Antiquity favored the scroll. Later Eastern, Western and Islamic religious cultures favored the manuscript codex. Subsequent church cultures moved to the printed book. Current, more secular, cultures favor the screen. A sequential diorama of the four p’s; papyrus, parchment, paper and phone, depicts transmission and library cycles. The advent of more secularist culture and its media identity is signaled today. Constraint on the use of phones while driving is not construed as religious persecution. Social transmission, library roles, and median history are increasingly screen based.

The library role is central to the transmission and continuity of media history. The book format as been central to this history and this paradigm is now augmented by screen display. Library services, even library exhibits, are moving to the phone. An increasing dependence on screen display has shifted focus from textual content to audio and video content. This is apparent at mid-winter ALA with intense preservation attention to non-paper formats and their collections.

Library preservation has assumed a vital role in the transitions and transfers, but preservation centrality is also a feature of times of transition. We are at a bottleneck moment that emphasizes preservation. Collections were built across eras of higher availability of the given works acquired. Increasing unavailability and rarity of items emphasizes preservation. Brittle book processing comes to mind. But if we now pass to higher availability of screen displays that crosses the whole expanse of media history, the preservation role could become less apparent.

The preservation role could become invisible at a moment when greater emphasis is justified. No popular concern with preservation will associate with the abundances of screen display. Even the limits, deletions or outright interruptions of screen display will not directly associate with the need for preservation.

new normal

Future of collections has shifted from an assumption to a renegotiation. High-density storage, providing assisted living for collections, is the topic of conservators and curators (RBMS) and preservation planners (PAIG). Everyone is appraising the best way to attend remotely to aging physical collections. Meanwhile phone based library services delivery has shifted focus to audio and visual content that is abiding on non-paper media.

The take-home is that all physical collections are now special. This transition plays on the old dichotomy of Special and General collections that is now subsumed. The current reality is that real things, including last copy repositories for survivors, need separate management and are ancillary. All reality is special and a bit optional.

Collections types lament over lack of influence and disarrayed decisions, but it has ever been so. We need to actively advocate for and define the continuing role of physical collections, for back-up, mastering and authentication, in context of their screen simulations.

mid-winter

Here in Dallas. The suite kitchen here is fully equipped with everything for baking and cooking and serving an elegant buffet for 14. The toaster is excellent. Or you can dine at an incredibly cheap luxury restaurant. Order off the lunch menu and get a massive dinner with very fine entrees and imported beer for $15. The shower and toilet run massive amounts of water, so the drought must be a myth. I have a magnificent living room with huge bathroom and huge walk-in closet. I am next door to the worlds largest book store and just a block from a huge museum of biblical art with a feature on the King James. Close at hand is a mall of all the luxury retailers. The gated communities are wonderlands of gardens and security.

The rich need not pay much, either taxes or living expenses. They can watch every penny. Meanwhile lest fortunate must pay at highest levels for the least services and accommodation. It all makes sense to those on the very top. I hope I am not being too negative. Happily librarians are coming to town.

churn

From a historical perspective the productive career of the practitioner was once assured by integrated learning on the job. Considering collections care and bookwork where there was an endless period of instruction adapted from craft trades. Increasing specialization for library preservation benefited from this assured apprenticeship.

Career performance was complicated as library media and library delivery service became evermore diversified. As with other trends in media history, multiplicity increased. Gradually the previous generation had less practice to convey to the current. By the end of the 20th century each generation of library and archives preservation practitioners needed a different education.

That trend, of career deviation, as routines and methods of one generation became distinct from those of the previous, complicated productivity. As changing library services and an expanding scope of collection building proceeded, practitioner proficiency was disturbed. This trend has continued and a current working career is no longer coherent. The single generation of practitioners must literally shift careers and retrain multiple times.

The resilience and intelligence needed is great and the work is exciting and challenging, but the momentous trend does need some scrutiny. How can a career of practice move from stable preparation to constant re-learning? What aspects of practice prove most volatile and which are more persistent? These questions are well addressed in Paul Conway’s “Preservation in the Age of Google”.

But, how can the full duration of a working career be best adapted to rapid change? One excellent counter to the churn of library and archives preservation is ancillary book studies. The history of books and the nature of their qualities, both paper and screen display, offers perspective and continuity in a context of disconcerting change. Crafted experience of historical structures and technologies can calm distress over disruptions in the workplace.

churn2

at least three topics spun out of the centrifuge of a three hour cic preservation officers discussion. (1) storage of digital versions of non-paper legacy media, (2) management of legacy media storage, (3) churn of organizational structures for preservation and the increasing overhead of staff retraining.

(1) Hathi Trust has little interest in storage of digital versions of legacy (copies of analog magnetic or film) and internal options are drying up as the size of digital collections increases. Methods for validation and ingestion have emerged but that is not related to storage capacity or legacy media accommodation.
(2) Originals of legacy media cannot be repository stored without item description. Ideally these items would also be digitally transferred prior to storage but that should not forestall their curation and is not likely to be funded. Internet Archive may store legacy film copies. Strategy forward should also factor potential continuing acquisition or growth of legacy media.
(3) Concern for legacy media and born and transferred digital has repositioned preservation practice. This shift is caused and skewed at the same time by drastic library reorganizations, all different. Staffing is improving but at a cost of an increasing service menu. New positions fill in digital preservation practices. Overhead of retraining, retooling and reassigning existing staff is great with intended consequences countered with unintended. “What we must do in the next year is not the same as what we must do three years from now.” (Sherry Byrne)

book art

The book format is already loaded with meaning and expectation. Any artistic manipulation is then actively counter defined by the format. Appropriations stream back and forth and intentions and unintended consequences mix together. This circumstance of a third agent acting between art and artist distinguishes book arts.

The bungee like connections of intended and unintended consequence provokes other questions. Why is the classical reflex between manuscript and print or reformation and counter-reformation or textual and visual literacy so dynamic and so persistent? Is print determinacy at work to provide an underlying continuity of all cultural, religious, and scientific change? What keeps the book wedged among other media? Will the book subsume its own latest side effect of combined print and screen delivery?

bonefolder

“What set the Bonefolder apart was that from the outset it was designed to be open access and freely available to any and all online. It was the online only nature that allowed us to reach the audience we did with over 250,000 downloads over our 8 years and a presence in just about every library’s catalog.” Peter Verheyen

We now have the last issue of BoneFolder and it is a wonderful example of the series. This journal has provided an Ellis island of all the cultures that would make-up a nation. The relations of the diversity of features would still be difficult to chart as it required the whole sequence even to appreciate their scope. It is larger than book arts. The scope is closer to the qualities of physical books as depicted on-line.

Qualities of physical books depicted on-line is some kind of editorial paradox but the staff and Peter grappled directly with the challenges. The clean design and attractive two-column layout provided the perfect, conflicted, visual experience. We can also be appreciative of the energy and production of the authors.

BoneFolder is in the league of Fine Print and BookWays but it also enlarged the legacy. Now the momentum is handed off to the forthcoming journal of the Collegiate Book Arts Association. That larger organization will probably take more possession of its journal. Perhaps it will wish to take possession of the discipline of artists’ use of book formats. PDF?

a moment in book history

The book now spans both print and screen formats. Close attention to this circumstance of mixed delivery options reveals a surprisingly complementary and interdependent relation of affordances and a third stance going forward.

Enclaves of library preservation, academic book studies, and studio book arts are moving beyond contentions or “tipping points” to a fulcrum position of interaction between print and screen books. Other, wider sectors of publishers, educators, authors and information technologists are also assembling a composite stance.

Here are a few recent works that begin to establish the composite stance.
SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION: Transferred Illusions, Digital Technology and the Forms of Print, Marilyn Deegan and Kathryn Sutherland, 2009.
BOOK STUDIES: The Book in the Renaissance, Andrew Pettegree, 2010 and Divine Art, Infernal Machine, The Reception of Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending, Elizabeth Eisenstein, 2011.
DESIGN FOR READING: How the Page Matters, Bonnie Mak, 2011 and Breaking the Page, Transforming Books and the Reading Experience, Peter Meyers, 2012.

What if lively interaction between screen and print is, itself, the future of the book? So far this has been true! Screen books and paper books define each other as they diverge in genres, display and connectivity. Synchronized divergence reveals the self-authenticating print book a counterpart of the self-indexing screen book.

inside-out

Issue 14 of the Climate Notebook Newsletter, IPI, presents many important determinants of preservation environment. These summarized are (1) that thermal equilibration is fast and moisture equilibration slow, (2) moisture buffering is (inevitably) multilayered, and (3) the outdoor seasons and their indoor suppressions tyrannize storage conditions. Result of these givens is (1) that thermal shock suppressions are difficult (i.e. from heating or air conditioning failure) and any resulting condensation or desiccation can’t be avoided and is moderated only via collection commodity resilience, (2) moisture shock, on the other hand, is more easily buffered and frequently multiplied by layers of defense, (3) inevitable seasonal drift should be accommodated and not excessively opposed by energy driven indoor compensation (the collections will follow the longer term seasonal drift and have throughout their history).

Another sequence of considerations follows along with the factors described in the IPI Newsletter. This regards preservation monitoring generally and a wider range of preservation data that can be correlated. I suggested this possibility of a wider data “cloud” in the last PADG Mid-winter meeting (Environmental Monitoring Inside-Out). Such streams include data from alkalizing and possible reversion, moisture aspiration of collections, long term baseline performance of buildings, data from item repairs and data from environmental incidents and disasters. These different streams of data have something to tell each other. Such wider interrelation of data streams could converge with the evident movement away from simplistic “straight” line prescription for optimal collection storage conditions.

above the fold

“Throughout December, customers purchased well over 1 million Kindle devices per week.” (via TeleRead)

If personal computers enabled word processing, then book reading devices will enable remote and mobile library service. Connectivity advanced functionality of all screen display, but word processing and remote and mobile library service will remain authentic extensions of traditional writing and reading.

That could be the end of the story, but it isn’t. There may still be a wide scope for consequences. Yet to be transacted are intersections, interplay and interdependence of writing and word processing and reading and remote and mobile libraries

lightning content group

“We are at a very early stage in imagining the future of the book.” David “Skip” Prichard, President and CEO of Ingram Content Group, about the future of books and the opportunities for the book industry (via TeleRead)

No trade fluff here; this a a magnificent profile of book production prospects. Ingram is the force behind the curtain for Amazon fulfillment and integration of print and screen book production.

foreseeable future

“There’s been a significant shift online because of the sales tax savings,” he said. “Consumers see it as instant discount and most online retailers are delivering for free. That puts Sears and other land-based retailers at a significant disadvantage for the foreseeable future.” (Sears and Kmart close stores) CNN

We are still building malls here in Iowa. Such momentum will well overshoot the reversal to on-line shopping with a 15% advance in on-line sales this holiday period over last. Foreseeable mall vacancies will only add to the malaise of suburban living. Unlit and vacant, huge mall parking lots separate people.

Re-congregation into closer proximity is a strategy advanced in a book by David Owen; Green Metropolis, why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability. Shopping proximity and walk able neighborhoods are also exemplified in Iowa. Classical small – not mall – downtowns provide experiences that make shopping a communal activity.

These small town downtowns are also havens for independent bookstores. It could be that libraries and bookstores are useful identifiers of sustainable enclaves. The oddity of walking to a point of connectivity is itself an indicator of how disconnected we have become.

unlinked

“Yes, Kobo is apparently sabotaging publishers’ epubs by including their own css and a javascript file and forcing the use of their (horrible on any reader other than a kobo, as you discovered) styles rather than the original ones. The resulting files are no longer valid epub files in addition to the various other problems since these added files are “hidden” (not referenced in the content.ofp file).”

Storage and display are fused together in a paper book. Screen books, on the other hand, disengage persistence and display. This unlinking compounds delivery scenarios, disrupts editorial control, disturbs typographic refinement and multiplies the separated display and storage costs. Legibility is negotiable.

Many annoyances and frustrations with e-books derive from this disengagement. Proofing is defaulted to the crowd since reflexive correcting between separated served and displayed representations is too problematic. Proof reading is shifted from up-stream in traditional print, to way down-stream. Meanwhile multiple storage formats are variously incompatible with various display devices.

native and immigrants

“Digital Natives are those who grew up with digital technology from birth, whereas digital Immigrants are those who were already socialized in pre-digital ways when digital technology arrived on the scene.” Introduction to an exhibit on digital libraries, University of Iowa.

Set aside that all socialization is now supported by digital technology, the stated distinction of natives and immigrants can be revised. Culturally the natives are intruded upon while immigrants intrude. This semantic revision also has a bit of charm in context with interplay of paper and screen books and print and on-line libraries. Whatever the intrusive digital revolution will displace of the culture of the paper book there may still remain some useful lessons from the aborigines.

One outcome of two-way exchange could be the dawning of a fundamental interdependence of the paper and screen book. As each reveals exclusive affordances a reflexive force of definition will emerge to more responsibly allocate roles for research and transmission. Such an epiphany of shared print and screen delivery modes and shared function of embodied and disembodied content can define the post-digital library and the larger future of the book.

breaking the page

“I’m thrilled to announce the release of the “preview edition” of Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience (iBookstore, Amazon, O’Reilly). In this free download, I tackle one big-ticket question: how do we make digital books as satisfying as their print predecessors?” Peter Meyers

Peter Meyers (graduate of U of Iowa Writer’s Workshop) has a free sampler of his book Breaking the Page. He begins with consideration of an alternative title; Breaking the Book but he should also consider Hamady’s Breaking the Binding. The Meyer exposition investigates inherent screen format for books and how it will differ and not mimic the paper book.

The Page has become a cross-over topic in study of the comparison of screen and paper books, most recently with Mak’s book How the Page Matters or long ago in Keith Smith’s “punctuation of the page” of 1989, Text in the Book Format.

The Meyer book is excellent even if I was forced to read it on Kindle. Particularly fine are descriptions of attributes of the paper book. Three reading behaviors of browsing, navigation and search are defined that highlight the refinements of print.

Meyer then studies, surveys and proposes attributes of the screen book that could fulfill reader needs. Appraising the state of ebook delivery, he maps the opportunities for a more native, efficient, and satisfying screen book browsing, navigation and searching. I particularly appreciate his definition of distraction as a reading impediment. This is going to be a standard text for book futurists.

Futurist insights could be enriched by a larger book studies perspective. Peter does request information on development of the Table of Contents. This topic alone can advance both forward and backward into fundamental issues of reader prompted parsing.

thrilled

I’m also thrilled to announce the release of the “preview edition” of The Future of the Book: A Way Forward, Iowa Book Works, 2011. A useful evaluation of implications of dual – screen and paper – book delivery, this zany, and informative publication is readable.

Just $10 plus $3 shipping. Send no money. Your mailing address will trigger the order with invoice to follow with delivery. Pay only if dumbfounded. iowa.book.works(at)mchsi(dot)com

boson

A margin or perimeter of encounters of real and virtual is suggested by prohibition of cell phone use or other distractive connectivites while driving or performing surgeries. The two worlds are colliding and the overlaps can be destructive. Meanwhile, The Higgs Boson so called “God” particle has been purported to have been discovered just prior to the Christmas holidays by scientists at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Here as well, theoretic vies with observable. This sounds like such a fundamental confrontation that it must be timeless.

mirror

There is something of a mirror between popularizations of ebooks and print-on-demand books. Both started in enclaves of simulation of each other; ebooks mimic the paper book experience and print-on-demand needs digital technology and electronic files. Their mutual rise in popularity also has similarity; both went through fragmented implementation and commercialization now being overcome.

Both ebooks and print-on-demand also have plenty of room for growth and new marketeering. I am just back from the International Spanish language Book Fair, it is obvious that this print dominated market will itself support explosive development for both screen and paper book innovation.

Another suggestion is a possible (charmed?) 50-50 split in paper and screen delivery for books going forward. This would further suggest an inherent interdependence of the two delivery systems and an inherent integration of the book publishing industry overall.

50-50

“There is a natural limit to the growth of digital. I think it might be 50%. The book as an object is a perfect object. It has a lot of utility. People love it. There is something about a book. We’re going to see again a doubling of our growth over the next few years, to 40% or more. But once we reach a plateau, we’re going to have two businesses: a digital business and a physical business.” Jeremy Greenfield

This would be an almost charmed outcome for the premise of the interdependence of the print and screen book.

bookbinding models

Ever since the web police revamped the binding model collection it has been almost impossible to find it. But it is still there. Now all we need is an up-date to match the current collection; now twice as large.

links

“How does this fit into bike shop news? Most directly, I (Cody) recently began the certificate program at the Center and spend my days madly dashing between bikes and books. Less directly, there is a deep rooted connection between the authentic experiences of riding a bike and reading a book, between the technologies of self-propulsion and analog information dissemination.” 30th Century Bicycle

lament

The ebook revolution was not consumer driven, it was industry driven. There was no inherent market for screen books. Among industry calculations was an intention to provide a shopping device. The book reading simulation is something of a decoy.

Only now are consumer laments emerging. Black electrophoric e-ink and button navigation did provide a reasonable simulation of book reading. Industry agendas are now moving away from book dedication toward multifunction entertainment. The color phosphor screen and touch screen navigation is the path of least resistance of a large installed base. Color e-ink development has faded.

The lament is among dedicated book readers over the eclipse of the dedicated black device. The ebook revolution continues to be industry, not consumer driven. Consumers read on their phones.

real future

Digital technologies have advanced the paper book as much as the networked screen book. Advances in the physical book include new book papers, inks, adhesives and covering materials made possible with digital automation of manufacturing. As significant, competition presented by screen books has prompted identification and accentuation of exclusive paper book attributes. Some of these attributes are constraints difficult for screen book advocate appreciation. For example each paper book conveys only a single title. This obvious limitation has, never the less, enabled organization, reorganization and visualization of libraries, engendered an economic base for publishing, and validated academic and literary achievement.

Another seeming limitation of the physical book is its fuse together of the storage and display functions. This integration, so disordered with the screen book, has long proven a sustainable and cheap assurance for cultural transmission. Screen books decouple storage and display breeding multiple, uncertain and recurring costs.

Another positive outcome of competition of the screen book has been focus on the future of the paper book. The paper book has not rolled over and played dead. There has been functional clarification of its roles. While displaced from some reference genres, the paper book has accentuated its role in academic monograph as print on demand has extended its reach. Illustrated books for sciences and arts have advanced as they benefit from digital pre-press design and editing. Partextual features refined for paper magazines, newspapers, journals and books have proven variously difficult or impractical to migrate to the screen. These amenities of reader expectations have prompted major reinventions for the screen including, for example, touch-screen navigations. But at the same time print has an advantage of a highly refined “installed base” of book paratext including such almost invisible fundamentals as pagination, recto/verso duplex, and efficient two page spreads.

Digital technologies have advanced the paper book as much as the networked screen book.