http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/ Copyright 2009 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:13:55 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.21-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss jonathan harris, one of the most brilliant designer/thinkers around has just launched an awesome new project -- Sputnik Observatory.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/run_dont_walk.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/run_dont_walk.html Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:13:55 -0500 In an as yet unpublished manuscript, historian Marshall Poe writes: "A book is a machine for focusing attention; the Internet is machine for diffusing it." I can see how he gets there, particularly if it's a P-book rather than an... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/please_discuss.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/please_discuss.html Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:14:58 -0500 Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor has created an open source documentary about copyright and remix culture. The entire film can be downloaded from here.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/rip_a_remix_manifesto.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/rip_a_remix_manifesto.html Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:36:30 -0500 this is cross-posted from Bookfutures, the blog of Chris Meade, the director of IF:Book London IF:BOOK ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST FICTIONAL STIMULUS At last an end to those bored bookgroup blues! You love books but are interested if sceptical about what... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/post_15.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/post_15.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:54:14 -0500 There's endless talk these days about ebook readers, Kindle and all its e-ink cousins, and future tablets from Apple and other phone makers. There's nothing wrong with the fact that these devices are all designed to emulate the experience of... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/trying_to_think_a_bit_outside.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/06/trying_to_think_a_bit_outside.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:02:52 -0500 Noah Wardrup-Fruin has a book coming out from MIT Press this summer -- Expressive Processing. Together with Doug Sery, his editor at MIT and Ben Vershbow a former colleague at the Institute, Noah used CommentPress to conduct an open peer... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/05/noah_wardrup-fruin_sums_up.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/05/noah_wardrup-fruin_sums_up.html Wed, 13 May 2009 01:27:30 -0500 About two years ago, Dan Visel ended a thoughtful post on the New York Public Library's newly-installed Espresso Book Machine by proposing: "There's a discussion here that needs to happen." In light of the second version of the Espresso Book... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/05/the_presence_of_print.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/05/the_presence_of_print.html Thu, 07 May 2009 14:47:23 -0500 I am not a gamer. I do not consider myself a gaming enthusiast, I do not belong to any kind of "gaming community" and I have not kept my finger on the proverbial pulse of interactive entertainment since my monthly... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/04/gamers_anonymous.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/04/gamers_anonymous.html Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:50:49 -0500 On April 26 in Los Angeles, haudenschildGarage presents a performance entitled The Last Book, an "attempt to resurrect the medieval illuminated manuscript through the invocation of our current alchemy, the new technologies, to conjure a future as the past in... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/04/variously.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/04/variously.html Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:54:39 -0500 The most prominent members of the Oulipo are making a rare descent upon New York this week; there are readings at the New School tonight and in Pierogi in Williamsburg on April 3rd. (A complete schedule of events can be... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/oulipo_in_new_york.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/oulipo_in_new_york.html Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:16:25 -0500 Here and elsewhere in the blogosphere, much ink has been spilled -- or rather, many pixels generated -- regarding Sven Birkerts's "Resisting the Kindle," which contends that the e-reader's rise augurs ill for our ability to contextualize information. The argument... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/design_and_dasein_heidegger_ag.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/design_and_dasein_heidegger_ag.html Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:18:07 -0500 Brian Dettmer creates these extraordinary sculptures by amalgamating, modifying and mutating books. Looking at these images of the physical matter of books, remixed into sculptures, I'm reminded of the process that texts are increasingly going through once digitized: amalgamated, remixed,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/extraordinary_book_sculpture.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/extraordinary_book_sculpture.html Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:11:28 -0500 OK, so first of all: this isn't an article about whether or not ebooks are a good thing. But I was thinking this morning about the now hackneyed idea that we're moments away from an 'iPod moment for ebooks', and... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/will_the_real_ipod_for_reading.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/will_the_real_ipod_for_reading.html Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:00:43 -0500 The Atlantic just posted a short piece by Sven Birkerts, Resisting the Kindle, voicing his concerns over what is being lost when reading moves from page to screen. The challenge is to take the kernel of truth in what Birkerts... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/sven_birkerts_on_the_kindle.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/sven_birkerts_on_the_kindle.html Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:30:46 -0500 Arc90 has released Readability, a bookmark that strips away most of the cruft that generally surrounds text on the Web to focus on the main text column. It doesn't work on every website, of course, but it does point out... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/various_things_around.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/03/various_things_around.html Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:27:57 -0500 There have been a raft of reviews of the new Kindle and the various iPhone reading applications lately. In general, reviewers are more positive about the experience of reading from a screen than they have been in the past. However,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/why_is_text_on_screens_so_ugly.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/why_is_text_on_screens_so_ugly.html Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:09:49 -0500 Ars Technica has a review of an interesting-sounding iPhone application called Papers, designed to make it easy to carry around a library of scientific papers on your iPhone. It works with a desktop app also called Papers; it also interfaces... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/briefly_noted_iphones_oreilly.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/briefly_noted_iphones_oreilly.html Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:31:30 -0500 In Mute, Tony D. Sampson reviews FLOSS+ART and Software Studies: A Lexicon, two books on software studies and digital art. At the Poetry Foundation, Stephanie Strickland a manifesto for e-poetry, which nicely defines how e-poetry might differ from traditional poetry.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/briefly_noted.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/briefly_noted.html Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:22:04 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/itin_film_on_sunday.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/itin_film_on_sunday.html Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:41:17 -0500 I've been reading Tom McArthur's Worlds of Reference: lexicography, learning and language from the clay tablet to the computer, a history of dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference materials published in 1986. The last section, titled "Tomorrow's World" is interesting in hindsight:... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/wikipedia_before_wikipedia.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/wikipedia_before_wikipedia.html Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:50:32 -0500 When Jaron Lanier disparaged the Wikipedia in his 2006 essay on "the hazards of the new online collectivism" I wrote an impassioned defense including our oft-mentioned point that the most interesting thing about wikipedia articles, especially controversial ones is not... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/getting_closer_to_the_truth_--.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/getting_closer_to_the_truth_--.html Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:43:43 -0500 There's a post at the Harper Studio blog about Stephen King's recent denigration of Stephenie Meyer's talents as a writer. Meyer is, of course, the author of the Twilight books, a chaste vampire saga. The post asks: Can a book... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/judging_a_book_by_its_writing.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/judging_a_book_by_its_writing.html Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:34:51 -0500 If:book certainly isn't an obvious venue for a John Updike remembrance. In 2006, his "The End of Authorship" vehemently misconstrued the ideals of digital publishing. At remix culture, he bristled; at collaborative reading, he balked; at the notion of books... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/on_john_updike.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/on_john_updike.html Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:42:04 -0500 Syndicated comics artists who are seeing their livelihood disappear as the newspapers their work appears in shrink from sight, are starting to look with more interest at the world of online webcomics. Unfortunately, they seem to misunderstand what they see... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/syndicated_comics_artists_who.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/02/syndicated_comics_artists_who.html Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:06:11 -0500 One of the most attractive books I picked up last year was a copy of Ben Greenman's Correspondences, a collection of short stories published by Hotel St. George Press. Strictly speaking, you could argue that Correspondences isn't a book: a... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/correspondences.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/correspondences.html Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:37:34 -0500 The Internet, coupled with the bad economic times, has the media industry in a flurry; Institutional newspaper papers are failing regularly, magazines are reconsidering everything, and reports showing that people are just not reading - or at least not the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/can_books_and_the_web_play_wel.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/can_books_and_the_web_play_wel.html Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:04:13 -0500 Peter Brantley points out what's now at http://www.whitehouse.gov/copyright/: Pursuant to federal law, government-produced materials appearing on this site are not copyright protected. The United States Government may receive and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. Except... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/a_step_forwards_for_creative_c.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/a_step_forwards_for_creative_c.html Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:24:06 -0500 After an autumn spent retooling, MediaCommons has returned in new and better form. Check out the blog for details. Over at the much improved In Media Res it's sports week. Congratulations to editors Kathleen FitzPatrick and Avi Santo for a... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/media_commons_returns.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/media_commons_returns.html Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:09:32 -0500 Embarrassingly belated report on bookcamp (I've taken this long just to follow up on conversations). It was a delightfully un-stuffy unconference exploring bookish and net-ish tech-ish things, last Saturday, at the new Hub space in Kings Cross. I listened to... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/bookcamp.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/bookcamp.html Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:21:35 -0500 A quick note to point out LittleSis, an "involuntary Facebook of powerful Americans," a project of the Public Accountability Initiative funded by the Sunlight Foundation. It's something like a networked telephone book of the rich and powerful: LittleSis aggregates publicly... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/social_networking_in_reverse.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2009/01/social_networking_in_reverse.html Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:24:35 -0500 We don't talk about games here as much as we have in the past, but this John Lanchester essay is worth a look on your way to the New Year. One paragraph stands out to me, a brief consideration of... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/the_economics_of_video_games.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/the_economics_of_video_games.html Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:10:35 -0500 The institute got a fantastic xmas gift last week -- the seven women reading The Golden Notebook together said they are now having such a good time discussing the book in the margin they've decided to keep the conversation going... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/a_book_is_a_place.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/a_book_is_a_place.html Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:03:49 -0500 Helen DeWitt is a novelist who lives in Berlin. Her first novel, The Last Samurai, was published in 2002 to not inconsiderable acclaim, though it suffered, in this country at least, from having the same title as a Tom Cruise... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/an_interview_with_helen_dewitt.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/an_interview_with_helen_dewitt.html Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:07:19 -0500 The end of the year is heaving into view with its ineluctable retrospective urge. Trying to put together some semblance of a list of things that I liked this year, I came back to two books from the past year... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/volumes.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/volumes.html Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:52:51 -0500 Wyatt Mason, the keenly observant Harper's literary critic, blogged last week about the difficulties inherent to film criticism. "[B]ecause film is a waterfall of particulars," he believes, a movie review "is the hardest place to get any serious critical footing."... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/what_we_talk_about_when_we_tal.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/what_we_talk_about_when_we_tal.html Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:24:43 -0500 A screen is an extremely limited amount of space. We knew when we started The Golden Notebook Project that we could only fit about seven readers comfortably within the margins of the book. However, we are not interested solely... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/golden_notebook_update_even_mo.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/golden_notebook_update_even_mo.html comments Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:51:56 -0500 I spent a day last week at MASS MoCA, touring Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective. (It was finally profiled in the New York Times this morning, and NPR reported it yesterday.) The exhibit takes up an entire building, wall... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/image_courtesy_of_mass_moca.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/image_courtesy_of_mass_moca.html art Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:04:19 -0500 How valuable is metadata? Metadata was the buzzword of choice in the blogosphere back when if:book was started, somewhere between when everyone was talking about everything in terms of XML and when the hype moved on to social networking. You... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/music_is_metadata.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/music_is_metadata.html Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:00:16 -0500 Kenneth Goldsmith has launched a bold, full-throttle investigation into the nature of unpublishability over at Ubu. Introducing Publishing the Unpublishable, Goldsmith asks, "What constitutes an unpublishable work?" Authors sent in works that otherwise would have remained untouched, festering at... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/the_limits_of_unpublishability.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/the_limits_of_unpublishability.html Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:05:10 -0500 Almost forgot about this: if you're around New York this Sunday (December 7th), I'll be on a panel at the New York Center for Independent Publishing's Indie & Small Press Book Fair. The panel, at 2 p.m., is called "The... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/nycip_indie_small_press_book_f.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/nycip_indie_small_press_book_f.html Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:05:30 -0500 Uh-oh. While if:book slept, the publishing industry was cast into a tumult from which it's unlikely to soon recover. Having weathered an increasingly turbulent economic downturn, the industry's already rickety business models look all the more enervated. The headlines are... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/while_we_were_out_a_publishing.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/while_we_were_out_a_publishing.html Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:35:00 -0500 (Thanks for your patience - the blog is back!) On Friday November 21st, we met with the American Social History Project and several historians to discuss the possibilities for collaborative learning in history. Attendees included Josh Brown, Steve Brier, Pennee... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/american_social_history_projec.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/12/american_social_history_projec.html history Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:29:59 -0500 Something was going wrong somewhere in the Institute's archipelago of websites and NYU summarily turned off our server. We're slowly coming back to life - bear with us, we should have a lot of interesting things up here soon. Meanwhile,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/ifbook_on_the_way_back.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/ifbook_on_the_way_back.html Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:05:39 -0500 The Golden Notebook Project is LIVE. If you want to read along with a print version, here are links to both the US and UK versions from Amazon.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/four_days_to_launch.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/four_days_to_launch.html Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:56:42 -0500 We asked Rick Prelinger for permission to cross-post this provocative piece which originally appeared in Absent Magazine 1. Why add to the population of orphaned works? 2. Don't presume that new work improves on old 3. Honor our ancestors by... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/on_the_virtues_of_preexisting.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/on_the_virtues_of_preexisting.html Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:29:33 -0500 Image inspired by Shepard Fairey. In case you prefer to get your news online, here are a variety of ways to follow the election coverage. Predictably, Twitter is following every second of the election. If you're into Twitter, maybe... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/following_election_coverage.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/following_election_coverage.html Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:17:13 -0500 We've got a small NEH grant to hold a couple of brainstorming sessions. the overarching goal of the sessions is to come up with a conceptual framework for learning spaces which combine the rich media attributes of the cd-rom era... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/an_invitation_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/an_invitation_1.html Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:36:11 -0500 On a clear day, Guy Maddin might be my favorite living film maker. He's not to everyone's taste (The Heart of the World, complete on YouTube, is a good litmus test), and I won't attempt to convert the unbelievers. But... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/the_indeterminate_dvd.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/11/the_indeterminate_dvd.html media Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:31:00 -0500 A quite note to point out that LACMA has announced that they've posted the long out-of-print catalogue for their 1971 Art and Technology show online in its entirety in both web and PDF format. It's worth looking at: Maurice Tuchman... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/art_and_technology_1970.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/art_and_technology_1970.html art Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:08:58 -0500 An engraving of The Turk from Karl Gottlieb von Windisch's Inanimate Reason, published in 1784. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. We had Lauren Klein, a graduate student from CUNY, over to lunch this afternoon. One of the pleasures of such... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/post_14.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/post_14.html history_of_interactive_media Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:13:32 -0500 In addition to the demo books themselves, we've posted several movies demonstrating the capabilities of Sophie 1.0. At about a minute each, these clips provide a cursory glance at a variety of our books, complete with hopefully unobtrusive narration by... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/sophie_demo_movies_now_availab.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/sophie_demo_movies_now_availab.html Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:34:03 -0500 I've just returned from a quick trip to India: with my brain yet furry from jetlag, I've yet to come to any understanding of what I experienced there, should such be possible. But while in Delhi, I picked up an... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/a_leap_into_the_postindustrial.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/a_leap_into_the_postindustrial.html literacy Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:09:15 -0500 Image via Queen's University. Here is a little bit about the MIT communications forum on October 14, with respondent David Thorburn, moderator Diana Henderson, and lecturer Stephen Greenblatt. Greenblatt is the Cogen University Professor of Humanities at Harvard. He... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/greenblatt.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/greenblatt.html Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:06:56 -0500 This Sophie book showcases several interesting, rare, or otherwise odd cookbooks from the collection of Kimberly Beeman. You can download it here (.zip, 60Mb). Make sure that you have Sophie or Sophie Reader installed. The title page, including a video... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/nine_curiosities_from_the_beem.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/nine_curiosities_from_the_beem.html Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:50:27 -0500 Contrary to popular lore, Lincoln did not write the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. Though given short notice that he was to speak at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery, he had enough time to write... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/the_five_drafts_of_the_gettysb.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/the_five_drafts_of_the_gettysb.html Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:15:44 -0500 My colleagues at the Institute and i are busy making some interesting things with Sophie 1.0. We're going to start posting them on a new institute website devoted to Sophie 1.0. [They will also be available on the OpenSophie site]... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/meanwhile.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/meanwhile.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:31:44 -0500 An Experiment in Visualization: Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speeches from Truman through Obama and McCain. In addition to the wordle.net visualizations in which the size of the word is proportionate to the number of times it is used, we've also included... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/and_the_first_document_is.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/and_the_first_document_is.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:40:40 -0500 Last week the Mellon Foundation announced a $1.25 million grant to the University of Southern California for a java-based version of Sophie, which will be known as Sophie 2.0. In addition to improving on Sophie 1.0 in various ways, Sophie... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/mellon_announces_a_125_million_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/mellon_announces_a_125_million_1.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:25:31 -0500 (Photo of Tom Stoppard's book case, made by T. Anthony, via The New York Times.) For the sake of travel and convenience, sure, even a Kindle is better than toting a book shelf with you on an airplane. But... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/how_do_you_want_to_read.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/10/how_do_you_want_to_read.html Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:25:02 -0500 Beginning November 10th, seven women will begin a public conversation in the margins of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook. The text of the novel and the readers' conversation will be in a nifty new format designed by Apt Studios in... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/the_golden_notebook_project_re.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/the_golden_notebook_project_re.html Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:52:16 -0500 With October just around the corner, American universities and high schools are gearing up for homecoming celebrations, those unabashed nostalgia fests. There's just one problem: the yearbook, one of nostalgia's favorite vessels, is obsolete. This summer, the Economist reported on... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/putting_the_book_back_in_faceb.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/putting_the_book_back_in_faceb.html Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:37:59 -0500 Just came upon a Guardian piece looking at the underwhelming quality of 'e-lit'. In my comment on the discussion I found myself reviewing a number of themes that have recurred in my if:book research over the last couple of years:... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/elit_in_the_guardian.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/elit_in_the_guardian.html Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:41:49 -0500 On Thursday October 9th, National Poetry Day in the UK, 2008 if:book london is launching an exciting experiment in reading and writing, supported by Arts Council England. Over the next six months I will be working with artist and web... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/this_is_a_world_of_imagination_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/this_is_a_world_of_imagination_1.html uk Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:31:44 -0500 Views of Wikipedia are decidedly mixed in academia, though perhaps trending slowly from mostly negative to grudgingly positive. But regardless of your view of Wikipedia - ?or your political persuasion - ?you can’t help but be impressed with the activity... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/sarah_palin_crowdsourced.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/sarah_palin_crowdsourced.html Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:14:53 -0500 Natura Morta, Giorgio Morandi, 1956 (via The Met) There is little or nothing new in the world. What matters is the new and different position in which an artist finds himself seeing and considering the things of so-called nature... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/post_13.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/post_13.html Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:41:00 -0500 This morning, I went to Samuel Johnson's house (now a museum dedicated to 18th-century London) in the old City of London. Today is (or would have been) Samuel Johnson's birthday; the occasion was the launch of Wordia, a new startup... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/wordia_new_definitions_of_lite.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/wordia_new_definitions_of_lite.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:05:42 -0500 Pardon me for plagiarizing Churchill, but the victors aren't the only ones writing history these days. At the Institute, we're re-imagining the American History Project's "Who Built America?", hoping to re-imagine the sort of information in this CD-ROM from 1991,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/history_is_written_by_the_read.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/history_is_written_by_the_read.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:18:56 -0500 Microsoft Multimedia Schubert was published fifteen years ago, in 1993. Developed by the Voyager Company, the program was one of many in an early "Microsoft Multimedia Catalog." It allows users to engage in a close reading of Schubert's Trout Quintet,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/unearthing_a_multimedia_time_c.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/unearthing_a_multimedia_time_c.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:39:24 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/books_and_control.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/books_and_control.html books Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:26:49 -0500 Alex Itin, the Institute's artist-in-not-quite-residence, is having an opening soon. He says: I will be filling four walls with a floor to ceiling installation of images extruded over the last several years for the Art Blog: IT IN Place: http://www.futureofthebook.org/itinplace/... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/a_reading_room.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/a_reading_room.html events Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:46:55 -0500 I came home from my first year at college, reeling from culture shock unrecognized until much later, to a job at the local natural history museum. I was in charge of their live reptile exhibit, a perennial summer attraction in... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/recognitions.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/recognitions.html reading Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:44:22 -0500 The following is a set of notes, written over several months, in an attempt to weave together a number of ideas that have emerged in the course of the institute's work. I'm hoping for a lot of feedback. If there's... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/a_unified_field_theory_of_publ_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/a_unified_field_theory_of_publ_1.html Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:29:15 -0500 One of our terrific summer interns, Rick Williamson, just sent a link to this 1976 TV interview of Marshall McLuhan in which he skewers the presidential debates for being completely the wrong form for the medium of television. It's interesting... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/macluhan_skewers_the_president.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/09/macluhan_skewers_the_president.html mcluhan Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:19:15 -0500 The Orwell Prize has recently unfurled their project to post George Orwell's personal diaries online, in blog form, and in real time, seventy years after each entry was originally written. Why they've elected the blog format and the seventy-year anniversary... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/remediating_orwells_diaries.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/remediating_orwells_diaries.html Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:45:17 -0500 I thought that Terry Teachout made an unfortunate omission in his recent column, "Hearing is Believing: The Vanished Glories of Spoken-Word Recordings." After glimpsing into BBC's giant vault of sound recordings, Teachout bemoans the inaccessibility of most spoken-word albums: Why... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/i_heard_words_and_words_full_o.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/i_heard_words_and_words_full_o.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:01:05 -0500 A couple of weeks ago, Sebastian Mary posted about experiments with sending out literature via Twitter. She found herself disappointed that DailyLit was neither "abridging the text savagely for hyper-truncated delivery, or else delivering the unabridged text 140 characters at... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/twittering_from_the_past.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/twittering_from_the_past.html twitter Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:18:21 -0500 Emily Dickinson's poems weren't published during her lifetime- it was only after her death that her sister found Emily's manuscripts, tucked at the bottom of a trunk, and decided to publish them. In the translation from manuscript to printed page,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/emily_dickinson_in_sophie.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/08/emily_dickinson_in_sophie.html Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:23:19 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/07/do_you_remember_the_first_time.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/07/do_you_remember_the_first_time.html google Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:20:50 -0500 I got a note from someone at Britannica online telling me about a discussion prompted by Clay Shirky's riposte to Nicolas Carr's Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The conversation on the Britannica site, and the related posts on... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/07/post_12.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/07/post_12.html mcluhan Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:07:44 -0500 Zoomii, a new virtual bookstore that uses Amazon's prices and fulfilment, provides a nifty 'browse' interface that lets the viewer zoom in and out of 21,000 'books' - read cover thumbnails - arranged on 'shelves' according to category. It's the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/07/now_you_can_judge_a_virtual_bo.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/07/now_you_can_judge_a_virtual_bo.html Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:36:05 -0500 I made a passing mention of email-me-chunks-of-book-to-read service DailyLitin my recent-ish post on writing less. Though I've not tried it, it's been picking up some press lately as a way to get your reading done via the network. The latest... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/dailylit_experiments_with_publ.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/dailylit_experiments_with_publ.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:15:53 -0500 A new project by HP Labs aims to make print-on-demand magazine publishing available to everyone. MagCloud uses a similar model toLulu for books, or Moo for stickers and cards: upload your digital content here and we'll deal with fulfillment.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/lulu_for_magazines_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/lulu_for_magazines_1.html Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:05:38 -0500 My last review post covered the debates around digitization of public domain archives, especially with reference to Google. Key to these debates are questions of access: who gets how much, what to, how is this controlled, and who by? And... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_review_3_privacy_and_ne.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_review_3_privacy_and_ne.html Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:50:21 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/new_ways_with_words.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/new_ways_with_words.html london Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:43:24 -0500 More fun with book metadata. Hot on the heels of Bkkeepr comes Booklert, an app that lets you keep track of the Amazon rank of your (or anyone else's) book. Writer, thinker and social media maven Russell Davies speculated that... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/the_long_tale_another_book_met.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/the_long_tale_another_book_met.html metadata Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:00:39 -0500 if:book readers may remember my excited post from last October when Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize. I had coincidentally re-read The Golden Notebook over the summer and when I realized that none of my younger colleagues had read it,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/readers_wanted.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/readers_wanted.html Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:50:39 -0500 In discussing with other Institute folks how to go about reviewing four year's worth of blog posts, I've felt torn at times. Should I cherry-pick 'thinky' posts that discuss a particular topic in depth, or draw out narratives from strings... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/google_digitization_and_archiv.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/google_digitization_and_archiv.html archive Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:35:05 -0500 The period of extreme introspection is winding down. As you've seen over the last few days Sebastian Mary has embarked on a review of if:book's first four years. This will unfold over the next few weeks and will prepare the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/were_on_our_way_back.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/were_on_our_way_back.html Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:17:08 -0500 In marked contrast to J K Rowling, whose battles against the publication of a fan-created Potter encyclopedia we've covered here, fantasy author Naomi Novik's website hosts a wiki in which fans of her writing help to co-create an encyclopedic guide... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/fantasy_authors_site_hosts_fan.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/fantasy_authors_site_hosts_fan.html fanfic Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:55:41 -0500 Ecodazoo is a beautifully-animated if slightly inscrutable site created in Papervision, a real-time 3D engine for Flash. Scrolling around the page takes you to a series of animated 'pop-up books' that tell vaguely eco-educational stories. It's pretty, even if... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/virtual_popup_book_in_papervis.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/virtual_popup_book_in_papervis.html ecodazoo Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:56:01 -0500 I was beginning to research an article about ARG genres when I came across this interesting tidbit. Without telling the client, an architect renovating an Upper East Side apartment included secret panels, puzzles, poems and artworks that - when they... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/fifth_avenue_apartment_encoded.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/fifth_avenue_apartment_encoded.html ARG Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:26:26 -0500 London-based creative studio and social think-tank Proboscis has put impressive effort into thinking through the incarnations and reincarnations of written material between printed and digitized forms. Diffusion, one of Proboscis' recent-ish ventures, is a technology that lays out short texts... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/printable_minibooks_revisit_ei.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/printable_minibooks_revisit_ei.html print_on_demand Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:17:44 -0500 I've chosen 'game culture' as the theme for this first review post, for all that many of these posts could just as easily be tagged another handful of ways. But games have always hovered at the fringes of debates about... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_review_1_game_culture.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_review_1_game_culture.html archive Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:35:28 -0500 Whew. I expected my review of the if:book archive to take me a few days, and selecting/commenting on posts to be a quick job requiring at most a handful of posts. Wrong. It took me a week of digging to... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_review_update.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_review_update.html Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:14:07 -0500 Popping out of review and archiving mode for a quick mention of bkkeepr, a new project recently out of stealth mode. Based around Twitter and ISBN data, it creates a timeline of who's reading what. The feed provides intriguing browsing,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/bkkeepr_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/bkkeepr_1.html Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:20:25 -0500 Well, I don't want to give away much about what was a blindingly brilliant episode of Doctor Who, but suffice to say the library survived, though the whole collection had been backed up on the biggest mainframe in the universe.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/the_doctor_the_salon.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/the_doctor_the_salon.html readers Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:30:21 -0500 We've now launched a website for if:book london, the British iteration of the Institute, at http://www.futureofthebook.org.uk, and that links both to this blog and one which will focus on UK activities and in particular our work with the literature sector... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_london_tomorrow_the_sta.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifbook_london_tomorrow_the_sta.html uk Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:10:04 -0500 It's been pretty quiet on the blog for the last few weeks. This is partly because there's a lot of work going on backstage. But it's also symptomatic of the fact that the research, writing and blogging element of the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifjanus.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/06/ifjanus.html review Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:23:53 -0500 sorry for the extended absence from these pages. we've been wonderfully busy at the first Sophie workshop (at USC) this week. news of that and much else next week.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/05/place_holder_2.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/05/place_holder_2.html Fri, 30 May 2008 13:51:35 -0500 We're taking ben's leaving as an opportunity to think about the institute's mission and the role of if:book within that context. and most importantly we're trying to figure out the best way to involve the readers of if:book in this... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/05/placeholder.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/05/placeholder.html Wed, 07 May 2008 11:08:57 -0500 A few weeks back though the auspices of TED, I paid a visit to a private library. The owner doesn't want publicity, and I won't reveal details, but it was a staggeringly beautiful (if idiosyncratic) collection, and I can't imagine... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/05/looking_at_libraries.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/05/looking_at_libraries.html libraries Tue, 06 May 2008 16:18:00 -0500 Two weeks ago the Instittue for Multimedia Literacy (IML) at USC held a ceremony for the first graduating class of students with honors in multimedia scholarship. two of the students wrote their theses in Sophie. Based on their experience, Holly... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/exciting_announcement.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/exciting_announcement.html Sophie Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:42:35 -0500 A new research paper by Bruce Mason and Sue Thomas on A Million Penguins, the controversial wiki novel created last year by Penguin Books makes fascinating reading. It includes amongst other delights an analysis of the activities of the contributor... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/fail_again_fail_better_have_fu.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/fail_again_fail_better_have_fu.html research Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:20:56 -0500 Longtime visitors to if:book have heard about Sophie, the reading/writing environment we've been working on since the inception of the institute in 2004. Version 1.0 of Sophie was quietly released last month. We'll make a number of Sophie-related posts over... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/sophie_vs_powerpoint_and_keyno.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/sophie_vs_powerpoint_and_keyno.html Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:12:38 -0500 I found this new site, 217babel.com set up by Brighton based journalist and writer William Shaw, to be a nice example of an online fiction that actually gets you reading rather than admiring it awhile and then glazing over or... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/stories_and_places.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/stories_and_places.html web Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:55:01 -0500 "While businesses based on the sale of paper may or may not be in crisis, those of us with a wider responsibility for ensuring our literary culture thrives have wonderful new tools with which to encourage participation and communication. The... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/floing_again.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/floing_again.html literature Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:43:32 -0500 The future has only been a topic of interest for a relatively short while. For most of time the future was likely to be pretty much like the past except we'd be dead then and replaced by replica offspring -... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/tomorrow_and_tomorrow.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/tomorrow_and_tomorrow.html future Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:34:10 -0500 Omnisio, a new Y Combinator startup, lets people grab clips from the Web and mash them up. Users can integrate video with slide presentations, and enable time-sensitive commenting in little popup bubbles layered on the video. MediaCommons was founded partly... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/interface_culture.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/interface_culture.html interface Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:43:01 -0500 Sebastian Mary and i were talking last week about the need to re-conceive the format of if:book so that interesting posts which initiate lively discussions don't get pushed to the bottom. a few days later i met with Rene Daalder... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/a_new_blog_format_avoids_the_t.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/a_new_blog_format_avoids_the_t.html design Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:10:36 -0500 I've been making my way through Robert Bringhurst's The Tree of Meaning: Language, Mind and Ecology, which came out a couple years ago in Canada, but which is now getting an American release from Counterpoint. Bringhurst is probably best known... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/a_return_to_orality.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/a_return_to_orality.html bringhurst Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:14:12 -0500 You've probably noticed that things have been relatively quiet around here lately. I haven't been on vacation or anything like that. Rather I've been figuring out the future, not of the book, but of me. After much personal consideration, and... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/changes.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/changes.html thefuture Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:37:16 -0500 Kyle Bean, student at the University of Brighton sent me this nice example of his work. More hybrid books on his site http://kylebean.co.uk... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/illumination.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/illumination.html art Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:04:56 -0500 I was on the underground making my way to the London Book Fair yesterday, hoping to stand out from the crowds of frantic publishers jostling there by carrying over my shoulder the fabulously pretentious "Proust Society of America" book bag... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/a_la_recherche.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/a_la_recherche.html proust Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:43:01 -0500 J.K. Rowling went to court today to try to stop someone from publishing a lexicon of Harry Potter characters. She says she wants to do it herself, but even if that gave her the right to stop others from doing... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/old_school_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/old_school_1.html jkrowling Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:51:22 -0500 Wouldn't it be great if textbooks were published online with dynamic comment fields so that students like Matthew LaClair could raise these sorts of issues directly in the margin of the book. imagine what a terrific conversation might unfold and... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/daydreaming_about_a_better_tex.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/daydreaming_about_a_better_tex.html textbook Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:39:35 -0500 Chances are that unless you're a mathematician or a physicist you don't know anything about TeX. TeX is a computerized typesetting system begun in the late 1970s; since the 1980s, it's been the standard way in which papers in the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/thinking_about_tex.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/thinking_about_tex.html tex Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:36:11 -0500 This is the narrative text for an NEH Digital Humanities Start-UP grant we just applied for. Narrative With the advent of the cd-rom in the late 80s, a few pioneering humanities scholars began to develop a new vocabulary for multi-layered,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/where_minds_meet_new_architect.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/where_minds_meet_new_architect.html scholarship Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:49:26 -0500 Hence the quiet around here.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/writing_grants.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/writing_grants.html grants Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:26:03 -0500 The announcement this morning of the launch in the UK of a new waterproof laptop looks like another nail in the coffin of the traditional paper book, as the new device at last makes it possible to read a downloaded... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/ereads_iwash.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/ereads_iwash.html e-books Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:33:17 -0500 "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parceque je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." Pascal, Lettres provinciales, 16, Dec.14,1656. I used to co-edit Pick Me Up, a cult London digital newsletter. After some years perfecting... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/on_writing_less.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/on_writing_less.html brevity Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:52:32 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/against_reading.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/against_reading.html mikitabrottman Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:50:47 -0500 At TED 2008, visual cartographers David Sibbet and Kevin Richards produced over 700 spontaneous sketches of the keynote presenters' ideas, using Autodesk visualization tools. These sketches have now been turned into The BIGVIZ, a downloadable 200-page interactive ebook. Parts... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/the_big_book_of_ted.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/the_big_book_of_ted.html visualization Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:46:42 -0500 This morning, I received an envelope through the post. It contained two chapters of a pulp murder mystery, along with an invitation to a private gathering with the same title as the booklets: Looking For Headless. The gathering will... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/this_is_a_game_no_really_it_is_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/this_is_a_game_no_really_it_is_1.html Games Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:26:28 -0500 I spent the weekend before last at the Center for Book Arts as part of their Fine Press Publishing Seminar for Emerging Writers. There I was taught to set type; not, perhaps, exactly what you'd expect from someone writing for... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/from_work_to_text_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/from_work_to_text_1.html typesetting Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:06:03 -0500 A couple of weeks ago, I alluded to a new institutional partnership that's been in the works for some time. Well I'm thrilled to officially announce that the we are joining forces with the NYU Division of Libraries! From Carol... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/major_news_ifb_and_nyu_librari.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/major_news_ifb_and_nyu_librari.html library Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:46:47 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/a_serious_shot_at_screen_readi.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/a_serious_shot_at_screen_readi.html screen Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:11:41 -0500 Ben posted a few weeks back about an intriguing new interactive project in the pipeline from Penguin. WeTellStories, produced for Penguin by ARG studio SixToStart is now out in the open. Comprising six stories based on Penguin Classics, released one... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/first_of_penguins_interactive.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/first_of_penguins_interactive.html ARG Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:04:04 -0500 So Noah's just wrapped up the blog peer review of his manuscript in progress, and is currently debating whether to post the final, unfinished chapter. He's also just received the blind peer reviews from MIT Press and is in the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/expressive_processing_post-gam.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/expressive_processing_post-gam.html reading Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:27:25 -0500 I want to give a shout out to a wonderful new project by a dear friend of ours. So When Are You Going to Retire? is -? or will be, or is in the process of becoming -? a... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/so_when_are_you_going_to_retire.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/so_when_are_you_going_to_retire.html publishing Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:18:40 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/issue_magazine.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/issue_magazine.html design Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:27:23 -0500 The following quote was in AP story i read in MIT's Technology Review this morning about Microsoft licensing Adobe's mobile Flash and PDF software. "Flash content is the most prolific content on the web today; it is the way people... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/hmmm_please_discuss.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/hmmm_please_discuss.html adobe Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:57:37 -0500 If you're in the New York area, don't miss this. Friday, March 21, 2008, 7-9pm - ?New York, NY - ?125 Maiden Lane, 2nd Floor. FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY: Step inside three books, drink free beer and wine, and experience... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/step_inside_the_books_new_york.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/step_inside_the_books_new_york.html events Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:31:15 -0500 In case you missed the news last week, Siva has locked up a deal with the University of California Press to publish the North American print edition of The Googlization of Everything. It's due out late summer, 2009. Profile will... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/googlization_of_everything_now.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/googlization_of_everything_now.html googlization Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:36:10 -0500 It's mainly the literary world that assumes fictional work to be best when the creation of only one person. Most TV shows, movies, games and comics are created by teams. But though creativity here is not bound by the Romantic... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/in_search_of_jenny_everywhere.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/in_search_of_jenny_everywhere.html comics Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:12:18 -0500 It's all go on the digital publishing scene in the UK with Penguin launching their first ARG next week - go to www.wetellstories.co.uk for more details, and various big companies plotting experiments. Meanwhile this week Gail Rebuck, chief executive of... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/friday_projections_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/friday_projections_1.html publishing Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:40:50 -0500 Alex Itin just cross-posted a wonderful new piece on his blog, and Vimeo. I watched it on Vimeo and was struck by the terrific back and forth discussion between Alex and the people who are looking at his work. It's... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/tradeoffs.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/tradeoffs.html Web2.0 Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:13:09 -0500 Good news. Google has finally released an API (?) for Google Book Search: Web developers can use the Books Viewability API to quickly find out a book's viewability on Google Book Search and, in an automated fashion, embed a link... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/google_books_api.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/google_books_api.html books Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:03:44 -0500 A quick note to point out Rosa B, a new online publication in French and English from the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art Bordeaux and the Bordeaux School of Fine Arts. Their first issue, online now, is about contemporary publishing... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/rosa_b.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/rosa_b.html rosa Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:48:11 -0500 The first two major ARGs to play out, The Beast and ilovebees, surprised their creators: the collective intelligence of thousands of players was taking down in hours puzzles that the puppetmasters had expected the community to wrestle with for days.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/more_compelling_than_choice.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/more_compelling_than_choice.html ARG Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:09:04 -0500 Buckle your seatbelts, we may be experiencing a bit of turbulence. We're in the process of migrating our server from Los Angeles, where for the past three and a half years it has resided, at the University of Southern California,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/migrating_eastward.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/migrating_eastward.html technical Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:23:59 -0500 Faber chief executive Stephen Page's article in yesterday's Guardian outlines some straightforward ways of taking advantage of social media, on-demand business models and so on in the interests of sustaining Faber into the 21st century. Push out content that brings... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/friday_musings_on_the_literary_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/friday_musings_on_the_literary_1.html print Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:07:00 -0500 I finally got around to reading Nicholson Baker's essay in the New York Review of Books, "The Charms of Wikipedia," and it's... charming. Baker has a flair for idiosyncratic detail, which makes him a particularly perceptive and entertaining guide through... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/nicholson_baker_on_the_charms.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/nicholson_baker_on_the_charms.html wikipedia Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:43:34 -0500 First Monday has a new special issue out devoted to unpacking the politics, economics and ethics of Web 2.0. Looks like lots of interesting stuff. From the preface by Michael Zimmer: Web 2.0 represents a blurring of the boundaries between... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/critical_perspectives_on_web_2.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/critical_perspectives_on_web_2.html Web2.0 Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:13:43 -0500 Back in December we announced the launch of Flight Paths, a "networked novel" that is currently being written by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph with feedback and contributions from readers. At that point, the Web presence for the project was... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/flight_paths_20.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/flight_paths_20.html flightpaths Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:10:13 -0500 We were recently alerted, via Grand Text Auto, to a new hypertext fiction environment on the Web called Hypertextopia: Hypertextopia is a space where you can read and write stories for the internet. On the surface, it looks like a... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/hypertextopia.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/03/hypertextopia.html hypertext Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:57:41 -0500 "Writers of the world arise! It's time to throw off the shackles of traditional publishing contracts and face a brand new digital future with a brand new set of priorities." So starts an article on the Guardian 'Comment Is Free'... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/fight_path.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/fight_path.html publishing Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:47:22 -0500 Engagdet points to an award winning Australian student design for an e-book reader that combines the gesture-based "multi-touch" interface of the iPhone with the e-ink display of the Kindle. LIVRE design concept -? Nedzad Mujcinovic, Monash University "Interaction happens via... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/student_designer_envisions_a_m.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/student_designer_envisions_a_m.html design Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:02:17 -0500 On the subject of major traditional media entities and cross-platform experimentation. Over in London last night Chris and I went to the launch event for Bow Street Runner, an online game launched by UK TV broadcaster Channel 4 to coincide... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/channel_4_goes_crossplatform.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/channel_4_goes_crossplatform.html ARG Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:29:03 -0500 Following on last year's wiki novel, Penguin will soon launch another digital fiction experiment, this time focused on nonlinear storytelling. From Jeremy Ettinghausen on the Penguin blog: ...in a few weeks Penguin will be embarking on an experiment in storytelling... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/penguin_of_forking_paths.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/penguin_of_forking_paths.html fiction Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:55:00 -0500 The Millions has an interesting interview with the South African-born, New York-resident writer Barry Yourgrau, who recently published a collection of "keitai" (cell phone) fiction in Japan. Known for bite-sized surrealist fables (as here), the hyper-compression of the cell phone... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/art_of_compression_barry_yourg.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/art_of_compression_barry_yourg.html keitai Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:33:39 -0500 In a sense, Graham Rawle's novel Woman's World, just out in the United States from Counterpoint, is made for the internet. It's the sort of thing that you expect to see on Digg or Reddit: artist spends several years cutting... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/he_do_the_police_in_different_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/he_do_the_police_in_different_1.html graham Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:08:16 -0500 Borders, in partnership with Lulu.com, has launched a comprehensive personal publishing platform, enabling anyone to design and publish their own (print) book and have it distributed throughout the Borders physical and online retail chain. Beyond the basic self-publishing tools, authors... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/borders_selfpublishing_and_the.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/borders_selfpublishing_and_the.html publishing Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:16:08 -0500 If you haven't already, check out Siva Vaidhyanathan's excellent Chronicle of Higher Ed piece on privacy and surveillance: a review of several new books treating various aspects of the topic, but a great all-around thought piece. A taste: Certainly the... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/sivas_naked_in_the_nonopticon.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/sivas_naked_in_the_nonopticon.html privacy Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:52:41 -0500 A thought-provoking "meta-post" from Noah Wardrip-Fruin on Grand Text Auto reflecting on the blog-based review of his new book manuscript four chapters (and weeks) into the process. Really interesting stuff, so I'm quoting at length: This week, when I was... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/conversation_revision_trust.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/conversation_revision_trust.html peer_review Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:07:54 -0500 An article in Publishing News this week suggests that UK publishers are bracing themselves for the arrival on these shores of the Kindle or a rival to it soon. Much discussion of e-royalties is going on; HarperCollins and Random House... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/eread_all_about_it.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/eread_all_about_it.html publishing Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:14:33 -0500 I meant to blog this earlier but it's still quite relevant, especially in light of other recent activity on the open access front. Last week, Danah Boyd announced that henceforth she would only publish in open access journals and urged... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/danah_boyds_closed_journal_boy.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/danah_boyds_closed_journal_boy.html academic Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:46:35 -0500 The Harvard Crimson: The motion, which passed easily at yesterday's Faculty meeting, grants Harvard a non-exclusive copyright over all articles produced by any current Faculty member, allowing for the creation of an online repository that would be "available to other... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/harvard_faculty_votes_overwhel.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/harvard_faculty_votes_overwhel.html harvard Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:28:49 -0500 The U.S. presidential primaries in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. are not the only votes to watch today. The New York Times reports that arts and sciences faculty at Harvard are weighing in today on a proposed measure that would make... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/harvard_faculty_cast_vote_on_o.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/harvard_faculty_cast_vote_on_o.html openaccess Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:45:26 -0500 In the Institute's London office we've been talking about how to get across the message that the book has been through permanent change throughout its history, to knock on the head the simplistic argument of good old page v bad... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/a_brief_history_of_book_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/a_brief_history_of_book_1.html book Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:57:38 -0500 Over the next couple of days I'll be filling up my brain at the O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference -? taking place, conveniently, here in New York. I'm giving a talk today called Books as Conversations, and participating... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/at_oreilly.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/at_oreilly.html conference Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:36:26 -0500 The New York Times: In an attempt to increase book sales, HarperCollins Publishers will begin offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site, including a novel by Paulo Coelho and a cookbook by the Food... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/harpercollins_offers_free_eboo.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/harpercollins_offers_free_eboo.html publishing Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:20:23 -0500 Alongside our research for Arts Council England, I'm also looking at how how new media writers earn their livings and make their way in the world. The Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University is... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/digital_livings_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/digital_livings_1.html research Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:09:41 -0500 Philip M. Parker, a professor at Insead, the international business school based in Fontainebleau, France, has written 85,000 books and counting. He's like a machine. In fact, he has a machine that writes them for him. The Guardian has more.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/book_machine.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/book_machine.html books Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:34:37 -0500 The image below shows every cross-references in the Bible. Definitely more the eye candy variety of information visualization, but I thought it was pretty. Chris Harrison, the creator, explains: "Different colors are used for various arc lengths, creating a rainbow... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/biblical_interweave.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/biblical_interweave.html visualization Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:52:13 -0500 Via Ron Silliman, an interesting profile of Edmund Skellings, poet laureate of Florida since 1980 and newly appointed professor of humanities at Florida Tech. A New Englander, Skellings started off as a poet in the Robert Frost mould, and even... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/robert_frosts_digital_disciple.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/robert_frosts_digital_disciple.html poetry Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:58:01 -0500 Two weeks ago, when the blog-based peer review of Noah Wardrip-Fruin's Expressive Processing began on Grand Text Auto, Bob sent a note about the project to Don Waters, the program officer for scholarly communications at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/developing_books_with_networked_communities.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/developing_books_with_networked_communities.html expressiveprocessing Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:22:44 -0500 Some choice quotes from Ursula K. Le Guin's terrific new Harper's essay, "Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading" (unfortunately behind pay wall): Books are social vectors, but publishers have been slow to see it. They barely even... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/books_are_social_vectors.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/books_are_social_vectors.html books Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:48:12 -0500 The intensely homoerotic Buffy and Faith storyline in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was developed partly as a direct response to fanfic writers' interpretations of the show in this light As an undergraduate I read English Language and Literature at... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/the_id_of_writing.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/02/the_id_of_writing.html fanfic Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:15:32 -0500 The picture is of a Futurizer, based on the kinds of contraption I built as a child from cardboard, balsa wood and string which allowed me to communicate with other planets and centuries. It was reconstructed by a group... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/future_boy.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/future_boy.html transliteracy Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:48:35 -0500 To mark the posting of the final chunk of chapter 1 of the Expressive Processing manuscript on Grand Text Auto, Noah has kicked off what will hopefully be a revealing meta-discussion to run alongside the blog-based peer review experiment. The... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/expressive_processing_meta.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/expressive_processing_meta.html peer_review Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:20:30 -0500 Slate takes a look at Grady Harp, Amazon's no. 7-ranked book reviewer, and finds the amateur-driven literary culture there to be a much grayer area than expected: Absent the institutional standards that govern (however notionally) professional journalists, Web 2.0 stakes... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/amazon_reviewer_no_7_and_the_a.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/amazon_reviewer_no_7_and_the_a.html books Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:21:43 -0500 The Institute for the Future of the Book has been appointed by Arts Council England to undertake research into digital developments in literature. This is exciting news for us, not least because it marks the official launch of our London... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/knitting_the_web.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/knitting_the_web.html uk Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:13:54 -0500 If you're in the New York City region, this is worth checking out (features Institute fellow Siva Vaidhyanathan): From Free Culture @ NYU: In 1998, university professor Kembrew McLeod trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression" - ?a startling comment on... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/freedom_of_expression.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/freedom_of_expression.html film Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:33:13 -0500 An exciting new experiment begins today, one which ties together many of the threads begun in our earlier "networked book" projects, from Without Gods to Gamer Theory to CommentPress. It involves a community, a manuscript, and an open peer review... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/expressive_processing_an_exper.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/expressive_processing_an_exper.html peer_review Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:30:55 -0500 Markers move around the map registering Wikipedia edits in close to real time. Weirdly compelling.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/watch_wikipedia_happen.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/watch_wikipedia_happen.html wikipedia Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:59:47 -0500 http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/new_commentpress_version_available.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/new_commentpress_version_available.html commentpress Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:53:12 -0500 Thurs 13 Mar @ Bishopsgate Institute BOOK FUTURES: Scott Pack (thefridayproject.co.uk) + Chris Meade (futureofthebook.org) + John Lenehan + Shirley Dent (Chair) What does the future hold for reading, writing and publishing? When we all go digital, what will be... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/london_calling_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/london_calling_1.html london Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:14:57 -0500 I've been meaning to post something for a while about The Reprover, or Le Reprobateur, a hugely impressive work of digital fiction by François Coulon, Paris-based digital writer. It includes excellent cartoons, live video of the main character and a... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/literature_electrique.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/literature_electrique.html e-book Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:23:55 -0500 An interesting experiment on Vimeo. See what's going on? Via IT IN place.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/try_reading_this.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/try_reading_this.html reading Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:27:41 -0500 In the course of looking for something else entirely, I just stumbled upon Emergency Books. It's a (slightly dormant) side project of Litromagazine, a freesheet that publishes and distributes short fiction outside London Underground stations. Emergency Books are, very simply,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/emergency_books.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/emergency_books.html printondemand Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:18:40 -0500 digitalculturebooks, a collaborative imprint of the University of Michigan press and library, publishes an annual anthology of the year's best technology writing. The nominating process is open to the public and they're giving people until January 31st to suggest exemplary... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/nominate_the_best_technology_w.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/nominate_the_best_technology_w.html publishing Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:44:50 -0500 Alex Itin has posted a new "print" of his mind-blowing Moby-Dick animation, "Orson Whales," on Vimeo, which now offers gorgeous high definition streaming. Click the image below.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/orson_whales_in_high_def.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/orson_whales_in_high_def.html art Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:01:56 -0500 Last week there was a wave of takedowns on YouTube of copyright-infringing material -? mostly clips from television and movies. MediaCommons, the nascent media studies network we help to run, felt this rather acutely. In Media Res, an area of... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/youtube_purges_fair_use_tested.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/youtube_purges_fair_use_tested.html fairuse Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:18:00 -0500 Just came across something lovely. Video for "Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)" by the now disbanded Grandaddy from their great album The Sophtware Slump (2000). Jed is a character who weaves in and out of the album, a forlorn humanoid... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/poem_for_no_one.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/poem_for_no_one.html animation Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:08:45 -0500 LibraryThing now interfaces with the British Library and loads of other UK sources: The BL is a catch in more than one way. It's huge, of course. But, unlike some other sources, BL data isn't normally available to the public.... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/no_longer_separated_by_a_commo.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/no_longer_separated_by_a_commo.html library Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:06:27 -0500 The NEA claims it wishes to "initiate a serious discussion" over the findings of its latest report, but the public statements from representatives of the Endowment have had a terse or caustic tone, such as in Sunil Iyengar's reply to... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/reading_between_the_lines.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/reading_between_the_lines.html NEA Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:13:46 -0500 2008 is going well so far for the Institute in London - I was invited to 10 Downing Street this morning for the launch of the National Year of Reading which takes place in 2008, as one of a small... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_year_of_reading_dangerousl.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_year_of_reading_dangerousl.html books Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:48:25 -0500 Last week I received an email from Sunil Iyengar of the National Endownment for the Arts responding to Nancy Kaplan's critique (published here on if:book) of the NEA's handling of literacy data in its report "To Read or Not to... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/nea_reading_debate_round_2_an.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/nea_reading_debate_round_2_an.html reading Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:39:16 -0500 Natalie Merchant, one of my favorite artists, was featured in The New York Times today. She is back after a long hiatus, but if you want to hear her new songs you better stand in line for a ticket to... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_year_of_the_author.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_year_of_the_author.html music Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:16:15 -0500 On New Year's Eve, I got lost in Yonkers trying to take my son's gently-used toys to the Salvation Army. The Yonkers store was the only one I could find willing to take them. The guy on the phone hesitated,... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_future_of_the_sustainable.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_future_of_the_sustainable.html ebooks Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:59:28 -0500 What makes me think 2008 will be a big year for the future of the book? Last night in London we went to see the movie of The Golden Compass adapted from the excellent Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Imagine... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/coming_soon_to_a_laptop_near_y.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/01/coming_soon_to_a_laptop_near_y.html film Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:22:58 -0500 We're all spending some time away from our computers so things will be pretty quiet round here till after new year's. Happy holidays, everyone. Btw, if:book just turned 3!... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/quiet.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/quiet.html Blogosphere Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:25:17 -0500 The New York Times continues to do quality interactive work online. Take a look at this recent feature that allows you to delve through video and transcript from the final Democratic presidential candidate debate in Iowa (Dec. 13, '07). It... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/anatomy_of_a_debate.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/anatomy_of_a_debate.html visualization Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:16:48 -0500 Perhaps the only blog featuring a tag cloud in which 'Assistant Post Mistress' looms large, The Travelling Bookbinder in Antarctica somehow seems suitable festive reading for the online book lover. Book artist and travelling bookbinder, Rachel Hazell, is currently working... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/if_all_the_sky_was_paper_and_a.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/if_all_the_sky_was_paper_and_a.html Blogosphere Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:23:38 -0500 Think you've got an authoritative take on a subject? Write up an article, or "knol," and see how the Web judgeth. If it's any good, you might even make a buck. Google's new encyclopedia will go head to head with... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/a_few_rough_notes_on_knols.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/a_few_rough_notes_on_knols.html google Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:06:09 -0500 I've never liked seeing movies in groups. After two hours immersed in a fictional world I dread that moment when you emerge blinking into the light and instantly have to give your verdict. Personally I want time to mull, and... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/bothered_about_blogging_etc_1.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/bothered_about_blogging_etc_1.html reading Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:16:10 -0500 There's something about the work of Herman Melville that brings out the unexpected in his readers. Example can be drawn almost at random. Call Me Ishmael, the poet Charles Olson's lyrical little book on Moby-Dick, is as much a meditation... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/textual_montage_the_documentar.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/textual_montage_the_documentar.html collage Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:07:01 -0500 The Organization for Transformative Works is a new "nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms." Interestingly, the OTW defines... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/a_safe_haven_for_fan_culture.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/a_safe_haven_for_fan_culture.html fanculture Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:23:14 -0500 02138, a magazine aimed at Harvard alumni, has a great article about the widespread practice among professors of using low-wage student labor to research and even write their books. ...in any number of academic offices at Harvard, the relationship between... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/ghost_story.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/ghost_story.html writing Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:55:29 -0500 To make a trifecta of film posts for the day, I'll point out Jonathan Harris's The Whale Hunt. Properly speaking, this isn't a film at all; rather, it's a sequence of 3,214 photographs which Jonathan Harris took over a week's... http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/and_cinematic_photographs.html http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2007/12/and_cinematic_photographs.html timeline Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:53:12 -0500