Sunday, September 16, 2007
Machine makes books in a jiffy
Digital scribe is a novel concept for library patrons
By Stevenson Swanson | Tribune national correspondent
September 16, 2007
Bookstores and publishers are worried that increasingly powerful computers, realistic video games and an all-pervasive Internet spell trouble for the future of such a decidedly low-tech object as a book.
But a machine on display at a New York City library offers a glimpse of a different digital destiny. Whirring and clattering in a corner near the check-out desk, the glass-enclosed contraption takes only a few minutes to turn a computer file into a collection of pages printed with words and bound between a stiff paper cover.
In other words, a book.
While mass-market electronic books remain an elusive goal for publishers and retailers, the digital age could result in a different kind of revolution for readers, according to Jason Epstein, a legendary publishing figure who is one of the co-founders of the company that made the machine.
Any book in existence could be printed out in a matter of minutes, provided there was a digital file of it. As a result, book lovers would no longer be stymied in their search for a certain title if it was out of print. They could have the book printed while they wait, at a bookstore, a library or a coffee shop.
"I think eventually everything will be digitized, which will mean that everyone in the world will have the same access to books as people in New York or Chicago," said Epstein, the former editorial director of Random House, who as a young editor in the 1950s saw the sales potential of paperbacks, which put inexpensive books in the hands of millions of readers. "Think of this machine as a visit to Kitty Hawk."
Machine in action
The device, called the Espresso Book Machine, uses a black-and-white printer to produce the pages of a book from a PDF file, one of the most common digital formats. While that copier spits out the pages, a color copier prints the cover on heavier stock.
Once the pages are printed, an electronically controlled clamp pulls the collected sheets over a roller to apply glue and then fastens the pages to the cover. Another clamp rotates the book so a blade can trim it to its finished size, and it pops out of a slot at the bottom of the device.
In a demonstration last week at the New York Public Library's Science, Industry and Business Library, the Espresso produced a copy of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in five minutes.
During the machine's stay at the library, visitors have been able to request free copies of 13 titles, most of them no longer covered by copyright, including William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
"It just blows my mind that this was instantly made," said Matt Tyson, 25, riffling the pages of "Book Business," Epstein's 2001 book about publishing.
Espresso machines also have been producing books at the World Bank in Washington and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. At the end of the month, the New York machine will be installed at the New Orleans Public Library. And next month, an Espresso machine will go into operation at its first retail location, Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vt.
"On any given day, I'm losing sales because people come in and ask for a book, and if we don't have it, we lose a sale," said Chris Morrow, whose family owns the store. "I want to be in a position to say, 'Grab a cup of coffee or browse a while, and I'll have a copy for you.'"
Binding the ideas
After a career of editing such writers as Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, Epstein gave a series of lectures in 1999 in which he reflected on his experiences in publishing and predicted that customers would be able to order an out-of-stock title and have it printed right away. All that needed to happen was for somebody to invent a machine that would fit in a store.
The future arrived sooner than Epstein thought. Jeff Marsh, a St. Louis engineer and inventor, had produced a prototype device that combined photocopying with bookbinding, using existing technology. After one of Epstein's lectures, he learned about the invention from a friend of Marsh's.
Epstein licensed Marsh's machine and teamed up with Dane Neller, a Chicago-area native and the former chief executive of specialty food retailer Dean & DeLuca, to form On Demand Books, the company that markets the Espresso.
Neller said that some Chicago-area universities and public libraries have expressed interest in the book machine, as have some book retailers, but no deals have been made yet.
Gerald Beasley, 47, a librarian at Columbia University, compared the machine to medieval scribes who wrote books by hand.
"This is a robotic scribe," he said as his son Christopher, 8, peered through the smoked-glass cabinet to watch a book being made. "There is something magical about commissioning your own copy of a book."
Writing a new chapter in publishing Books on demand, how it works:
*Cost of the Espresso Book Machine: about $100,000, although a streamlined model under development could cost as little as $25,000.
*Cost of printing one page of a book: about 1 cent.
*Number of people required to run the machine: one. Apart from selecting a title to print, keeping the machine stocked with paper and toner, and disposing of waste paper, the machine runs by itself.
*Number of titles available so far: 200,000 public-domain titles provided by the Open Content Alliance in San Francisco, which is building a library of digitized texts.
-- Stevenson Swanson soswanson@tribune.com
# posted by Gene @ 7:25 PM 
