Bookmobile 2.0

Welcome to the all new Digital Bookmobile, the world's first bookmobile without books. This 18 wheeler is 69 feet long and packed with the latest digital technologies. It was created by Over Drive to be used as an outreach tool for public libraries to promote their digital offerings.

How it works:

"The Digital Bookmobile, developed inside a high-tech tractor-trailer, will present programs that promote the host library’s download digital media catalog and ‘virtual branch’ website. The vehicle is customized for each library event and equipped with broadband Internet-connected PCs, high definition monitors, premium sound systems, and a variety of portable media players. Hands-on learning stations demonstrate how to search the digital media catalog, use supported mobile devices, and download and enjoy eBooks, audiobooks, music, and video from the library."

It kicks off it's national tour August 10th at the main branch of the New York Public Library. Current tour schedule here.


Thanks to LIS for the lead

The Library of Congress Hits the Jackpot on Flickr

No one saw this coming.

The plan was simple enough. The Library of Congress teamed with Flickr for a pilot project called The Commons, which basically consisted of LOC opening a Flickr account and uploading a little over 3,000 images (the LOC houses 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials!)

The goal was to address two of the major challenges the library faces:
1. "how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and
2. "how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity."

The result was astonishing and could arguably be one of the greatest cultural achievements to date in the young world of social networking.

Here's what happened within two days:

• All 3,100+ photos have been viewed
• 420 of the photos have comments
• 1,200 of the photos have been favorited
• 392,000 views on the photostream
• 650,000 views of photos
• About 1.1 million total views on our account

In their wildest dreams no one at either the LOC or Flickr expected this kind of public response.

"Frankly, none of us could quite fathom how fantastic the response to the pilot has been." is how they put it at Flickr's blog.

And Matt Raymond of the Library of Congress responded by saying "I can tell you that the reaction to this two-day-old project has already vastly exceeded our expectations."

This is a watershed event. It is a solid web 2.0 victory and one that just might expand the boundaries of social networking, where people are interacting with places as much as with people.

For the Library of Congress, and all the libraries that are watching how this pilot turns out, it is a brave new world. Now the conversation must include the question - what are we doing to bring our collections to the public? Your collection strategy can longer be solely focused on having people come to you to see what you have or in loaning items to other institutions, museums etc.

The success of this pilot might also have an affect on the Google Book Search model that many libraries are endorsing. Maybe libraries need a more multi-dimensional Web 2.0 approach to their collections, one that encompasses more than just digitizing the contents of their books.


Image from the Bain Collection at the LOC

The Hunt Is On In the U.K.

The public libraries of the United Kingdom are on a treasure hunt.

The goal:

To find the coolest item in their collection that has yet to be digitized and enter it into a contest being run by the British Library.

The contest is sponsored by the British Library with financial support coming from Microsoft.

If a particular library doesn't feel they have anything worthy they can they include "local partners such as museums, archives, churches or stately homes" to come up with their submission.

Finalists will be "invited to a high-profile awards ceremony at the British Library."

There will be one winner for each part of the Kingdom; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The winning items will be "digitized, converted into Turning the Pages 2.0 format and hosted online by the British Library for three years."

This is a pretty clever marketing strategy for both Microsoft and the British Library as it provides maximum exposure while providing an opportunity to feature their recently unveiled Turning the Pages 2.0 technology.

They are guaranteed A-list material to show off the technology with minimum expense.

Don't get me wrong. I can't wait to see the digitized versions of the winning books but the real contest should be in trying to find a way for these public institutions to digitize and make available to the public a much greater portion of their holdings.

British Library announcement
Article in the Belfast Telegraph on the contest

Previous Book Patrol post on the Turning the Pages 2.0 technology

Books: The Last Physical Media Product That Makes Sense

That's how Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired Magazine and creator of The Long Tail concept, put it during his keynote at the inaugural O'Reilly Media Tools of Change for Publishing Conference taking place this week in San Jose.

The goals of the conference are:

-To raise "the level of technology knowledge and discourse in the publishing industry"
-To provide "a meeting ground for everyone involved in the future of publishing"

It's a big week and I suspect a much more relevant one these days than the recently held BookExpo.

As comforted as I was by Anderson's acknowledgment of the staying power of the book I was as dazzled by Manolis Kelaidis’ little creation called blueBook.

In the books he produces "the digital and physical co-exist in a product that would offer the benefits of both."

How it works:

The book has a processor embedded into the cover. When you click on a hyperlink in the book the processor connects to your computer via bluetooth to trigger the required action.

Some possibilities:
-a children’s book on animals might activate sounds and videos on a screen when the printed picture of the animal is touched.
-Reference books may contain inline glossaries linked to Wikipedia or Google.
-Keywords in novels trigger incidental music.
-Buttons on academic papers connect to discussion forums or send feedback to the author.
- Textual advertising

Though it doesn't offer much more technologically than an e-book it does preserve the form of the book and might just be a more palatable use of technology for us book people.

Thanks to BookTwo.org for his post on bookBlue.

Here is Neil Edde's take from the conference floor.

The Death of the Bookend?

Furniture designer Leo Kempf was interested in designing a piece of furniture using a new technique. He came up with a "process of bending plywood to create a simple curve." He then inserted these curved plywood shelves into a red hardwood main beam to create The Gravity Bookshelf.

The bookshelf "is ideal for holding books securely without the need for bookends."

It works by "gravity gently press[ing] the books into the shelf, creating a very simple, clean, and unique piece of furniture"

















Thanks to LibraryPlanet for the lead

Buy - Dry - Read

This is Paolo Orsacchini's striking design for a limited anniversary edition of the Italian publication of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

The book comes wet. Soaked in sea water then sealed in a nice clear pouch.

Luckily, the paper is waterproof so if you want to read it you simply set the book out in the sun. Let it dry then read.

I haven't been able to find out much about the book details, like size of the edition and retail price, but the image and the story have been deservedly making the rounds of the design blogs.

The concept alone puts it in the same class of the limited edition of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 which was published in 1953. The edition consisted of 200 signed and numbered copies bound in a form of asbestos! Collectible copies today sell for around $15,000.

The high-end Jules Verne collectors are going to be tempted to buy two copies of this edition, one to buy and hold and one to buy and dry.

Readings For Money and Books For Free

You get a sneaking suspicion reading Ceclia McGee's piece in the New York Times "A Way to Give Authors a Lucrative Second Platform" that the model for author readings has changed drastically and that the free in-store author reading is endangered.

Many of the major publishing houses have set up in-house speakers bureaus which now hire out their authors to various groups and businesses for a fee which includes travel expenses.

Why are they doing this? The publishers say "they are responding to common industry trends: fleeting tastes in mass-market books, shrinking shelf lives in bookstores, disappearing book review sections, and the brief attention span of a media audience hooked on celebrity sound bites and Hollywood entertainment."

So instead of sending their authors on book tours consisting of free readings and various media appearances, most of which lose money for the publisher, they are now hiring them out to groups and businesses. The standard fee for most authors is between $5,000 to $7,500 with the speakers bureau taking a 20% cut.

From a pure business perspective it's a no-brainer. Getting paid to read sure beats giving a reading for free. Do you invest large sums of money to get your author out in the world or do you search out a targeted audience who will pay you for your author's time?

What about the booksellers in all this? At best they get to sell books at the off-site event, of course they lose the opportunity of selling any other books to the people who would attend the reading at their store, and at worst they are completely shut out. Oh and some publishers "want booksellers to become co-brokers" by helping the publishers find local businesses that might be interested in hiring their authors and they will split the commission with them." Yikes.

I could see it now. In a few years the only free readings will be via the LongPen and if you want to see an author in person you are going to have to pay.

Now for the free part. The London Book Project is under way.

The project is a brilliant endeavor by the folks at the new London Project whose goal is to raise awareness of the limitations of the mainstream media and particularly the free newspapers (freesheets).

Here is their mission statement:

"The London Project is a direct challenge to the freesheets. It's also a direct challenge to you: read something worthwhile - a free book, for example - and help others do the same. Pass it on.
The most diverse city in the world deserves a multinational newsroom for a multicultural audience."

Here is the skinny on the book project:

It is a "free book exchange on a massive scale. Using the London Underground as a high speed distribution network, we aim to bring real literature to London's commuters...Over the next two weeks we'll be distributing thousands of second hand books across the tube... If you see one of our books, please pick it up! Then read it and replace with any book of your choice. Let's make the tube a giant, free library."

This is BookCrossing, the original "read and release" book club, on steroids. The project is actually using book crossing for people who find the free books to register them.

The 2 week project has been so successful it has already been extended for the "foreseeable future."

Now that's spreading the word!

How Far Will The LongPen Reach?

In a few hours Margret Atwood and company will unleash LongPen on the BEA. From London to Walla Walla authors will be signing books for BEA attendees from the comfort of their own home (or publishers office).

It is billed as "the world's first real time, pen and ink long-distance autographing device" which produces "legally valid" signatures.

LongPen is the next generation of the Autopen, a technology first invented in 1803 (it was called a polygraph) and was used extensively by Thomas Jefferson.

These days it is a required technology for many politicians, celebrities and sports stars who simply cannot personally keep up with the demand or need for their signature. Ex Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was caught using the autopen technology to sign letters to the families of people killed in Iraq.

LongPen takes the technology of the Autopen and brings it into the 21st century by adding an audio and video component to the experience and by operating in real time.

LongPen is also being hailed as an ultimate green technology by eliminating the need for travel and its associated costs. The authors who will demonstrate the LongPen at the BEA will be saving over 5 tons of carbon emissions by signing via LongPen instead of taking taking airplanes to appear in person. Can't argue with that.

There are still many questions.

How will the bookselling markets react? Will books signed using this technology need to be labeled as such. Will we begin to see catalog descriptions like "Signed via LongPen", "Inscribed via LongPen" or "Signed in Person" etc. Will they have comparable value in the marketplace?

No matter how green an experience it is it still presents a fundamental shift in what a "reading" is. When the novelty wears off in a few years will it survive? Standing in line to get your book signed by a machine while you get a minute or so of face time with the author via video conferencing is quite a leap from the current schema of readings. Can you replace the lost intimacy through technology?

The reading series of many an independent bookstore is just a shell of what it once was in the pre-Amazon days. I look at the Elliott Bay Book Company here in Seattle whose reading series run by Rick Simonson was one of the strongest in the country. Now one only needs to look at the size of their printed reading schedule to know things have changed drastically.
Can this technology revitalize these reading series? Can we fill in those dark nights with content from around the world?

What about the cost? Since the program is still in its pilot phase the cost for booksellers has yet to be determined. For publishers the cost is $800 per event with a $1250 connectivity charge. I suspect like most emerging technologies the cost will be prohibitive for most independent bookstores early on though I have heard there will be a leasing option.
One concern is that by the time it becomes affordable for the small independent bookstore it will have been in every store of the big box retailers for some time. What happens then?

I can't wait to see how this one plays out.


Click here to watch the LongPen in action
Is It Real? has tons of examples of autopen signatures
Signascript produces traditional autopen or "signing" machines
BookTwo has some other ideas for new kinds of readings

Craig Does Like Newspapers. A Brief Chat with the Founder of Craigslist

Newmark started Craigslist 12 years ago in his San Francisco apartment where he created an online platform for his friends to basically help each other out. Now there are people helping each other out in 450 cities in 50 countries claiming over 7 billion hits a month.

In a previous post I responded to a few comments made by Newmark at the recent Newspaper Association of America annual convention in New York. One of the comments was that he has a ""great deal of sympathy for people who run the printing presses. They are screwed." Based on the current state of things for newspapers, after all this was right in the midst of the save the book review mania, I saw this as another canary in the coal mine for our beloved newspapers.

In a recent post on his blog he said this:

"a few reports took my statement that 'people running press are screwed' in some figurative way, not straight, and I don't get that"

This week I had a chance to talk to Craig in a little more depth on this issue.

Newmark has admitted that Craigslist "does drain some revenue from some papers that rely on ads" but he does not believe it has much more than a "minor effect."

So what about the relationship between craigslist and the current newspaper woes?

"There is no correlation" between Craigslist and the struggling newspapers Newmark told me and his hope is that newspapers improve not disappear. He would like them to invest more in their investigative reporting and to "speak truth to power" more.
They also have to make the necessary adjustments to deal with the shift in the delivery of information that is underway and improve their online presence.

Use less paper and provide stronger original content.

Can't argue with that.



Here is a good Q&A with Craig at I Want Media