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The BookMachine: On-Demand Book Printing in 3-5 Minutes
Photo_Designer writes "Engadget has an article about these cool BookMachines that spit out on-demand books in just a few minutes. Sounds cool. Forget eBooks.. get the real thing!" The company website has some more information, though it's a bit suspiciously skimpy on hard specifications.
In USia, however, it's a different story. IMHO, there's a perverse sense of pride in not reading that is slowly crawling through the USian population. More and more people (that I work with, at least) simply want to go home and let the TV do their imagining for them.
So, you could have vending machines which not only print books, but tuck the reader in to bed after bringing them hot coco and a stuffed bear before reading it to them and they still wouldn't take off.
However, for you and I of the dwindling reading population, it is a neat thing.
Excellent! No more "Out of Print" (Hopefully). I don't know if only a few of us have encountered more than one reference book that has been out of print since the mid-80s and is virtually impossible to find.
Yes, "no more eBooks" sounds good, but I'd say "Finally, a great balance".
Soon there will be eBookMachines which do all the stuff the BookMachines do but entirely online!
Nobody reads anymore, huh? So all these giant Barnes and Nobles they're building are just for decoration?
I knew it all along! Now, excuse me, a Simpson's rerun is on and I need it to think for me.
Library checked out of the book you need for that paper? Just make a copy! I can't think of how many times back in high school where we got assigned a paper on a given subject and I got to the library only to find that most if not all the relevant books were long gone. Of course, it'd only work so long as it was extremely cheap. Most students I know are poor :-)
It would seem a bit strange when the bookmobile prints your books for you. Imagine doing research or a book report and having to cite your sources. Do you cite that it was published a couple of days ago at the back of someone's tour bus?
The idea of print-on-demand does seem attractive, though. No real inventory to keep track of. No shelf space, no warehouse needed, and no unsold books. A similar promise brought out by e-books, except that you actually get a tangible book in the end. It can't be all bad.
The purchase of books does not necessarily imply the reading of them.
KFG
There's actually quite a lot of Print-On-Demand (POD) publishers out there these days.
Have a look at Publish And Be Damned for example.
(Even CafePress is offering it alongside their tshirts and stuff, though as with their other products, they're quite expensive)
I think the difference with this one is the specific machine, and the speed it produces the book. That's only really important if you're standing in front of the machine at the time.
Maybe we'll get book vending machines outside the supermarkets, and all the bookstores will close down? Or then again, maybe not. If I'm buying books, I like to browse around the store, see what it's got... Find a cover that appeals to me... read a random page to see if I like the writing. A book machine in the mall won't do that for me, so I'll still go to the book store. Or I'll use mail order... in which case it doesn't really make any difference to you whether it takes five minutes or five hour to print, because the shipping time will make that irrelevant
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Do not promote this government granted business methord intellectual monopoly.
They were replaced by teenage emplyees in Mcdonlads
"Print on demand" systems have been around for almost a decade. They're basically a super-industrial version of your home printer, so it (in theory) doesn't cost any more per book to print one paperback book than 100,000. They're usually used by low volume publishers (i.e. a few hundred to a few thousand). Where they really shine though is when they're used to print entirely customized manuals (i.e. if you sell some modular product you can on-demand print up a version of your manual for your customer which only includes the specific parts that their solution uses).
People actually buy used books by the foot for decorative purposes. Many books are purchased just to possess and display them, sort of like trophies. Just about every upper middle class home has a copy of Moby Dick in it somewhere. I'd guess about 1 in 100 has actually been read.
I habituate estate sales and such looking for "used" books, many of which have obviously never been read, especially those in shrink wrap. I once got free first pick of an extensive private library with dozens of unread books in it, and it had belonged to a history professor. The commemorative editon of the Feynman Lectures, still in the shrink wrap, was a nice bit of booty, it went very nicely with the unopened recordings of the same.
KFG
Many books are purchased just to possess and display them...
I actually have a number of books which have never technically been opened but which I have read not just once but often several times. They are classics which I frequently lend or give away. I then purchase replacement copies to have on my shelf should I wish to either A - re-read them, or B - pass them on again.
Things are not always what they seem...