ALA/ALCTS/PARS, Anaheim, 2008
Staying Alive: Books Through Print-On-Demand Technology
“Preservation Implications of ‘on-demand’ Book Production”Gary Frost, University of Iowa

Introduction

Certainly the physical book is in a new and lively competition for market and reader attention but the real spoiler for the future of the paper book is not book mimicry on a screen. The much more serious threat is faulty “on-demand” production of the book itself. Poor quality of the physical book subtracts directly from efficiencies that have long enabled its success.

Exclusive attributes of the paper book include legibility or immediacy of meaning, haptic efficiencies or graceful book navigation and default persistence. Another exclusive attribute is assured content. This attribute of self-authentication across time and cultures is particularly useful in a digital context of transience and continuous revision. The information and knowledge conveyed by physical books is immutable and does not change, the encompass of their content is obvious and self-evident and they act as a witness to the period of their production.

Such attributes are rarely mentioned. More frequently it is mentioned that physical books are practical to read while in the tub or at the beach. The really relevant superiorities are completely missed. Even fundamental navigational attributes are missed. For example, screen books require navigational scrolling or turning of each page while real books present a two page spread with a single prompt.

Of course a threat of atrophy of physical quality and graceful book action is not suddenly new in the history of the book, but it is suddenly more strategic. Exclusive attributes should not be neglected at a time that special attributes of screen media are aggressively promoted.

Threat of Atrophy

So what are the attributes at risk in the new era? One of the stealth aspects of the current atrophy in quality of physical books is a presumed continuity with wonderful book production standards of the past. As a result of such presumption the regressions have been somewhat invisible and un-remarked. Who will notice that current monographic acquisitions are not printed, but produced on high-speed copiers and who will notice that papers are now selected for copier run ability? Who will worry that facing styrene/acrylic fuser may block or that a slow chemistry with alkaline side papers could be adverse? And who cares if structure is immobile and the fused image is fragile?

And aside from technical considerations what if we are unaware of a stealthy damage of ergonomic attributes crucial to efficient reader comprehension? What if illustration is cloudy, print grey, paper translucent, typography clumsy and margins arbitrary? Again, a long legacy of performance of the physical book may now mask a neglect of attributes we have taken for granted. Haptic and kinetic features refined for optimal comprehension are at risk in the transition to on-demand production.

Assuring the Future of the Physical Book

If we are going to assure the future of the physical book we must pay attention to strategic attributes of print. Copier papers can be chosen for improved opacity and warmer color for text and brighter for illustrated works. Right grain imposition should once more be required. Innovations such adhesive bound, single fold impositions can also be considered. The resulting fold-bound text fans opened gracefully and offer excellent stay-flat reference.

Structural attributes begin with cold emulsion, double fan binding and folded endpapers. These prerequisites are not impractical or too expensive if the goal is a fine book and a cultivated market. The rigid, in-line adhesive leaf attachment of typical print-on-demand work ruins everything. At present inventory control wrappers are torn off leaving an interfering flange. This ruins final cover-to text fit, distorting board openings, leaf attachment and cover-to-text operation on case construction forwarding.

Rounding without backing and self-rounding cover inlays are niceties unless they are strategic attributes. We need solid color, cloth endbands, and lightweight, acid-free cover boards. Let’s also consider heat set casing-in and joints set and seam sealed with thin profile bed edges. Jacket stocks should be coated on both sides to resist unattractive cupping.

Among all the technical prescriptions and innovations needed to assure the future of the physical book, mobile and pliant tactile performance is also crucial. Elegant book action is the unrecognized quality that makes physical books exceptionally readable. Book conservators who daily repair crippled structures and compensate poor materials, know this premise of book longevity; the graceful acting book preserves itself. This protective action requires a lively opening at all page positions. This opening action must dissipate mishandling and transmit sudden motions and, then, secure and compact pages in a closing action that transforms the book to a stored medium.

Flat opening will also facilitate face-up or face-down scanning. With good book action the impediments to scanning can be blamed on the copying equipment and not on the codex. This is an especially important aspect of routine page scanning which has yet to reach a sunset, either in inter-library loan or patron photocopying.

A larger Context for On-demand Book Binding

The 19th century tipped a balance from cultural management of society to technological management. The century of the advent of photographic imaging, instantaneous telecommunication, digital encoding, mass production and keyboard interface shifted the paradigm. Every aspect of culture was newly directed by technological churn including learning and education and the nature of the library and its books. In the sweep toward automation it was apparent that books did not index themselves. Human classification and physical organization were required.

Innovative librarians by-passed the nature of books and began to automate the index rather than the collection. The card catalog was digitized in the 1960’s and whole text digitization happily converged the rendering of text with the indexing of text; the single encoding provided both.

The physical book remained unchanged and the general advent of automation shifted us to a self-indexing culture: from meaning to tabulation. Machine and mass production changed society but not the book. Its production remained separated from its indexing. But while physical books are not self-indexing, they are self-authenticating. As a result, academics clung to them and both the physical books and the academics were considered regressive.

But another shift is about to occur. This will be a shift in which authentication will again be influential. Touch screen voting, census automation and many other automated tabulations from traffic control to genetic modification will require some self-authentication. Museums, established to study physical artifacts, have already encountered this constraint on the limits of digital simulation and libraries will follow.

As James O’Donnell has said; “On the Internet, you never know what you are missing.” Queries that we pose search an unknown range and the results may well be filtered. On-line resources confirm only their existence in the present moment and on-line texts constantly change in relation to each other.
These features are considered attributes of digital delivery, but they should not be considered deficiencies of self-authenticating physical books.