Here’s a piece I wrote that appears in the latest issue of Amphora the journal of the Alcuin Society. It was written back in early January and though things continue to change at a rapid pace in the book world I thought it still worth sharing.
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Technology, technology, technology
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
-Bob Dylan
Technology, technology, technology has not exactly been the battle cry of the bookselling trade over the years but technology has now become an inescapable influence. The seismic changes bought about by the arrival of online bookselling in the mid-to-late 1990’s might have just been an appetizer. In the last year alone we have seen numerous technologies introduced each with potential far reaching effects for the bookseller. Three that stand out are the LongPen, new breakthroughs in digitization and Print on Demand technologies and the Book Social Networking craze.
The LongPen is a technology that allows authors to sign books from the comfort of their own homes. It is billed as “the world’s first real time, pen and ink long-distance autographing device” which produces “legally valid” signatures. It includes an audio and video component which recreates the particulars of a reading without the presence of the author. The two most interesting uses so far were what I believe was Norman Mailer’s last “book signing” when he went LongPen for the Edinburgh International Literary festival and convicted felon and book collector Conrad Black’s recent LongPen session. As far as I can tell no copies of books signed via LongPen have hit the market yet but it is sure to create a stir as the market determines the value of these “signed” books.
Print on demand has been around few a few years but this past year the Espresso Book Vending Machine hit the scene. The machine has the ability to produce two 500 page books every 7 minutes. The books are glued in full laminated covers and can be printed in any language. Though presently prohibitively expensive for most booksellers the seeds are here for a future version that will be affordable. Conceivably every out of print and hard to find book will be available to be printed on demand. This will not end the need for the original book version but it will greatly diminish the pool of potential customers for that book in its original form. Then there is the issue of digitization. Google will eventually run out of libraries to court and with their insatiable need for content will be forced to look elsewhere for material. Outside of libraries booksellers are one of the few repositories for untapped information. There is an enormous amount of unique content stored within the confines of the bookselling trade. From books long out of print to ephemeral items that present core samples of our material culture, there is a treasure trove of content awaiting the light of digitization. The door might not be open for long but if entered correctly it might become a new source of revenue for the bookseller.
Then we have the new world of social networking for book lovers. The three major players in this field are Librarything, Shelfari and Goodreads. Each brings readers and book people the opportunity to visualize their library and meet up with others with like interests. Though the act of reading is a solitary activity and doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the socializing and networking elements of this technology there still remains tremendous potential here. For example the library of Thomas Jefferson has recently been added to LibraryThing and one can imagine all the great collections both public and private that can benefit from being exposed to this new format.
In a trade that remained pretty much stable for hundreds of years we are now faced with change as the constant and how the bookseller adapts to this new playing field and these new technologies will ultimately determine their success.