One of the interesting things about monitoring new developments in information technology is that they often don’t go in the direction we expect. The demise of books in favor of downloadable electronic books or e-books read from handheld devices used to be the favorite vision for people who were certain that the end of books and libraries as we know them was right around the corner. Instead the book has shown remarkable staying power as a preferred literature delivery system. New ways of buying and obtaining books fueled by advances in IT have grown quickly and the often heralded e-books, although growing in popularity, are still rarely seen.
For example, print-on-demand services such as lulu.com have been around for a while now and they have revolutionized the book publishing industry. Books are preserved digitally and printed on demand when somebody orders a copy. When the book is ordered it is printed, bound and shipped the same day. As you can easily surmise, this has completely altered the landscape for users of rare books, self-published authors, vanity presses and small presses.
Now, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, customers at the University of Michigan library will be able to use a sort of vending machine to order print-on-demand copies of books from the university’s collection. The Espresso Book Machine, a book-printing machine described as “the ATM of books” will be available at the U of M’s library October 1st. The machines are going online at college libraries and bookstores all around North America.
Just about any digitized, out-of-copyright book from Michigan’s collection can be printed and bound on the spot. Printing takes five to seven minutes, and the cost is about $10 per book. Users will also be able to print books from online sources such as the Open Content Alliance. The Espresso’s manufacturer, On Demand Books, wants to create a network of machines in libraries and bookshops around the world, allowing users to print books from collections anywhere.
What do you think? Given the consumer’s lack of enthusiasm for e-books, is this the way information technology will most rapidly affect the world of books, libraries and maybe bookstores, through a totally new model for delivering good old fashioned books? Or, is this just another technological dead end?
