One of the Most Popular Penny Dreadfuls, Starring Dick Turpin, Highwayman. (Circa 1866.)It's a red-hot, red letter day for Amazon Kindle owners. The British Library has announced that 65,000 rare 19th century literary first editions will be offered as free downloads to owners of the device beginning in Spring of 2010. Thanks to a joint venture with Microsoft, the no-cost titles will reproduce the original type-face and illustrations from such classic works as Charles Dickens's Bleak House, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.While having an electronic facsimile of a valuable first edition is a...
Is the Rare Book World Ready For a Fully Interactive Catalog on CD? Part Two
Yesterday, I discussed the severe limitations of digital catalogs as PDF files integrating Flash animation. What might a fully interactive digital rare book catalog look like?Insert a new model digital catalog CD into your lap or desktop machine, click on the icon and open it. First thing you’ll notice is that it is full-screen with no wasted real estate surrounding it, content sized to a screen, not shoe-horned to fit onto a standard-sized 8 x 11 leaf of paper. You can read the text without need to zoom in.Click the mouse to move pages forward or backward. Click fast or...
Bookmark Collectors Book First Convention
Howard & Caldwell's Men's Clothing, Brockton, MA, c. 1880s.The first convention for bookmark collectors will take place on February 20-21, 2010. It is an online event; bookmark the page.Art and Crafts brass bookmark c. 1905, in the Roycroft style.Bookmark collectors and enthusiasts from across the globe will have an opportunity to meet, give and attend online seminars, view galleries, shop n’ swap, and socialize with other collectors and enthusiasts.Bookmark made from a discarded circuit board.If you collect, design and make, or are simply curious about bookmarks, this is an excellent way to indulge your passion or begin your journey. If,...
Is the Rare Book World Ready For a Fully Interactive Digital Catalog?
Early last year I received a rare book catalog on a CD. I thought: This is it, someone has finally taken full advantage of the technical and design possibilities, broken with the past and stepped into the future.Alas, it was the dealer’s print catalog mounted as a PDF. PDF files are monstrously heavy to send via email attachment and can take time to download. Hence, its snail-mail delivery on disk.Last week, one our colleagues in the trade, Chris Lowenstein of Book Hunter’s Holiday, issued her first print catalog. It is a handsome, lovingly produced and designed work, and everyone who...
New Reality Show For Book Readers?
With the pleasures of solitary reading under attack by social reading websites and book clubs, Last Gasp Productions is pitching a new reality show, Meet the Readers.Reality shows are only nominally about their subject. They are mini-dramas, each episode with something at stake and intra-group conflict that will be resolved - for the time being - by story’s end.The premise for Meet the Readers is deceptively simple: A disparate group of book lovers is marooned in Malibu, forced to live together in a small, cozy villa overlooking the Pacific, the washer and dryer kaput. The group is a mix of...