LitTAP Blog

Bob Stein, Institute for the Future of the Book

Talking to publishers — in order to keep doing what you’re doing, you have to make only incremental changes. Don’t have to do what he recommends — for the future.

Printing press — 1454. Took 50 years to put page numbers on books. SO, takes humans a long time to figure out how to use technology. Personal computer is only 35 years old. In middle of deep transition — how species communicate with each other.

When left publishing in 1996, needed professional programmer to do online content. Institute of the Book — MacArthur foundation-supported.

Ways of thinking anew about book, w/ tech.

Writing in margins, book + conversation. Book as blog posts in the making. Teacher working with class, annotating on piece — active engagement w/ text

Dorris Lessing’s Golden Notebook — comments in column alongside text. Proved value of asyncronous reading — didn’t have to meet all together in a physical space.

Easy to do, inexpensive. Examples, not online: Howl — text + audio, audio goes along w/ text (turns page as read). Emily Dickinson text — showcase all possibilities of text

Experiments — work well in a closed group, and if author is present. BUT, doesn’t work if you just put it up online.

“A book is a place where readers and sometimes authors congregate.”

“Old school” authors — engage with subject for readers vs. “new school” authors — engage with readers on behalf of a subject.

To publish online: need 1. distribution mechanism (Internet is great), 2. display (iPhone good, iTablet will be better), and 3. tools (DON’T have). Don’t want to publish five things, want to publish 50 things. CD-ROM — elegant. Vs. Internet. Locating content in a network — not that you could get it, but that it would put you in touch w/ others. Internet — connecting. And examples — easy to do, but might break! Not stable enough.

Looking to establish fair use for audio that we have for text. Found Bob Dylan lyrics — quotations are fair use, but included musical accompaniment. Copyright will be fought “in the streets,” depending on what people do, what happens in response.

Comment Press — will be available online at Institute soon. Way to present text, image/audio at once. But will be hard to commercialize.

200 years — post-Enlightenment — cult of the individual. Future — about collaboration.