Happy Holidays 

Your Friends at
Acme Bookbinding
Wish You & All People
Peace on Earth.

Today will be the last day of regular AcmeBook News postings for 2001. Posting will begin anew on January 7, 2002. Have a very happy and safe holiday, see you next year!

Future of Print 

What's Next for Text? by Richard A Lanham

THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE CROSSROADS OF CIVILIZATION REFUGE OF ALL THE ARTS AGAINST THE RAVAGES OF TIME ARMOURY OF FEARLESS TRUTH AGAINST WHISPERING RUMOUR INCESSANT TRUMPET OF TRADE FROM THIS PLACE WORDS MAY FLY ABROAD NOT TO PERISH ON WAVES OF SOUND NOT TO VARY WITH THE WRITER'S HAND BUT FIXED IN TIME HAVING BEEN VERIFIED IN PROOF FRIEND, YOU STAND ON SACRED GROUND THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE

In the present cornucopia of print, this splendid declaration still rings true. It cheers me every time I walk by it. But my copy of the poster includes a very small footnote: 'In keeping with the look and feel of the original, this version integrates electronic publishing technologies with letterpress printing methods. The type was set on a WindowsÅ system. Film output was produced on a PostScriptÅ imagesetter.' Beatrice Warde's printing house now stands on a digital foundation. The generative substructure is electronic; only the final display mechanism remains the printed page. [read more]
(link via Serious Instructional Technology)

Book Drop 

Book Drop Update

The Book Drop vending machine is now averaging $110 per day (for the last 14 days). That even with empty slots and a number of items out of stock. Customers are extremely varied from upper adminstration to raggy undergraduates...but all have been really enthusiastic. "It's such a thrill to get books in a vending machine!"

"It's so post-digital!"

E-Book 

eBook Obituaries in Abundance

Over the past few months, there has been a deluge of reports of closures, bankruptcies and layoffs in the ebook industry. No wonder Consumer Reports was prompted to ask "Closing the Cover on e-Books?" (Trends Watch column, January 2002, p. 7) Here is a summary of the woes in the ebook industry. [read more]

E-Books Live On After Mighty Fall by M.J. Rose

In the last few months, several e-book-only imprints have closed up shop.

First, AtRandom (Random House), then iPublish (AOL Time Warner) and last week MightyWords (BN.com-majority shareholder) bit the dust.

But that doesn't mean e-books are a lost cause. In fact, e-book reading and sales are stronger than ever.

In the past year, 1,600 titles were downloaded more than 3.1 million times at the Etext Library at the University of Virginia. That's 8,715 free e-books per day.

Meanwhile, independent publishers and retailers such as Fictionwise.com, Booklocker.com, Hardshell Word Factory and Palm Digital Corp reported sales increases in 2001 from between 100 and 400 percent over 2000.

What hasn't worked is heavily invested companies -- such as iPublish and MightyWords -- setting overly optimistic expectations.

But what has worked, albeit on a smaller scale, is selling quality work from recognized authors (Palm or Fictionwise), or offering readers niche titles that they are interested in reading (Hard Shell and Booklocker). [read more]

University of Virginia Library Free EBook Library

ALA Positions 

Principles for a networked World

Eight years ago, a group of librarians met in Washington to discuss the Internet's potential impact on libraries. Their goal was to prepare a statement of principles to guide libraries in what was already shaping up to be a major policy reassessment in telecommunication and information policy. Printed in draft form, the principles were never fully adopted by ALA. Nevertheless, the draft version proved to be a helpful resource for library policy advocacy.

Possibly the most important and farsighted contribution of that draft statement was the overall message it carried -- that libraries have a huge stake in helping shape the ongoing digital revolution and that their voices should be heard in a wide range of policy debates.

ALA's OITP Advisory Committee and Committee on Legislation decided this year that it was time to revisit and possibly rewrite the principles. After all, eight years is an eternity in digital time. The Internet has grown by orders of magnitude in size and capability in that time. Nearly all libraries now provide their users with access to the Internet (compared to an estimated 10 percent of libraries in 1993.) Indeed, major policy fights have erupted and, as we expected, libraries are in the middle of them all.

We are no longer speculating on a future technology and the role libraries would play. Digital technology is now part of librarians' daily lives. Eight years ago, we were trying to predict what policy issues would emerge. Today most policy issues are better defined and the potential impacts on libraries clearer. [read more]

ResourcesResources> 

AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors

Steven Cohen of Library Stuff is now offering an email version, Library Stuff Daily. Sign-up today!

Holiday Family Entertainment Suggestion 

Simple, go see the first installment of the movie epic The Lord of the Rings

Some "Ring" resources:

• The Secret of Tolkien's 'Rings'
• TheOneRing.net
• TolkienMovies.com

What's in a name? 

ac…me n.
Noun: The highest point, as of achievement or development: reached the acme of her career.

Other ACMEs on the Web

Words 

Omniglot: a guide to writing systems

What is an omniglot?
An omniglot is a rare, possibly mythical, book-eating beastie. The word 'omniglot' comes from the Latin omnis (all) and the Greek glotta (tongue) and means 'proficient in all languages' or 'having knowledge of all languages'.

What is the purpose of this site?

• To provide information about all writing systems and the languages they are used to write.

It currently contains details of over 150 different scripts, including a few you'll find nowhere else.
(link via leuschke.org)

Kids Predict the Future 

Libraries of the Future
(link via Library Juice)

Digital Delivery 

Penguin Classics Inks Deal With Ebrary

ebrary, a provider of information distribution and retrieval services, announced that Penguin Classics will distribute its library to new online markets via ebrary's software, ebrarian. Penguin Books is an imprint of Penguin Putnam Inc. [read more]

DMCA 

Court Decisions Tilt DMCA Balance Away From Libraries, Users by K. Matthew Dames

Critics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act will spend part of this holiday season figuring out how to use the lumps of coal a pair of federal courts tossed them in response to lawsuits that challenged the constitutionality of the 1998 law. [read more]