been there, done that
"I don't want this to lapse into the well-worn trope that conflates literacy with moral and civic value - but I'm unnerved by the notion of a fully post-literate world, and by the Flash applications and APIs that inhabit it."
Sebastian Mary
It really doesn't matter if the larger culture lapses into chaos. What is important is that cloistered enclaves responsibly transmit patrimony and efficient reading behaviors to a more receptive future. These enclaves, such as those immersed in the future of the paper book, have the capacity to outwit trends by their very seclusion.
inter library loan
"We have access to indexing and abstracting of EVERYTHING in the world. We only pay for what people actually USE. Some variation of this is possible for ebooks now. I think it should be the case for journals as well. Pay-per-use. Scary to some folks. Hard to budget for. Requires all kinds of new user education activities. Requires all kinds of different collection procedures. Maybe collection development as we know it disappears. Shiver!"
Collections 2.0
The library as screen is prefigured in eILL agendas. At the moment both lending and borrowing is based on differences in collections. How persistent is difference? Will collection differences save libraries? This is a larger question than the digital dissolve of the entity of a given book.
On the other hand,
BooksFree
flight of the condor II
An exciting project is underway to conserve antiquarian libraries in the highland colonial city of Arequipa, Peru. These libraries house collections spanning five centuries including materials produced in Peru where printing was introduced in the 16th century. The July 2008 project is a joint effort of book preservation specialists from the Universities of Alabama, Iowa and Texas. There is a
PowerPoint introduction.
post digital book
"Cracking the Code with Mixmaster Scrap June 10th and 11th; June 13th and 14th
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday; Saturday, 9:00-5:00, Art and Architecture Building , University of Utah
Get your swerve on with this inquiry into the uses and utility of the
artist's sketchbook, a venerable tool with the dexterity to act as
planner, journal and muse
Timothy Ely-aka, Mixmaster Scrap-began making books as an errant child.
Interest in UFOs, alchemy, comic books, bones, and arcane religious
artifacts led him from painting and design work to bookbinding."
two circles
Off to Denver for the 36th annual meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Future of the book advocates are fewer in
AIC but the great circles of AIC and ALA overlap just slightly where the weird advocates are.
I was at the 1971 and 1972 meetings were the AIC was established from the International Institute for Conservation with I believe 271 members and maybe 8 book conservators. Today there are 3,300 members and maybe 30 full time book conservators. This indicates a shrinking growth of practitioners specializing in books. Over the years the AIC has divided into ten speciality groups.
Meanwhile ALA/ALCTS/PARS, with too many specialty enclaves, is downsizing to just four discussion groups. Regardless of the naming confusions they should end up with an administrative discussion group and analog collections, digital collections and reformatting discussion groups.
And just as the universe is lumpy, the AIC/ALA circles overlap at various sites. But the future of the book overlap is easy; its a sub-set of "book and paper" in both organizations.
But we are also industrial spies in all of AIC/ALA/ALCTS/PARS.
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