To the Inevitability of Human Error

Technology is great and all, but many of us still love seeing its weaknesses. I don't want a machine to run so perfectly, so efficiently, that one cannot see the human inventiveness behind it. Hence, I greatly appreciated this post over at the blog kept by the Office of Scholarly and Literary Publications at Georgetown, about fingers getting scanned in with pages, and then appearing on Google Books. Oops!

Happy Friday!

Holy Book City!

Buried in today's installment of Shelf Awareness is a link to this amazing article from the Financial Times by Edwin Heathcote, about a place in South Korea called Paju Book City, about 30 kilometers northwest of Seoul. This urban space, zoned as industrial, "bounded by a motorway and the heavily guarded edge of a demilitarised zone," is a vision of ultra modern architecture and full of publishing companies and printers. It truly sounds amazing.

Plans for the Book City were first proposed in 1989, as the country was emerging from a period of political repression. Publishing had gathered momentum and status after years of underground activity and censorship, and it re-emerged after the liberalisation of the regime in 1987 in an explosion of small, often family-run publishers. Their beautifully crafted books attempted to re-engage the nation with the history and culture that had been distorted, manipulated and lost over a period which included colonial rule from Japan, brutal civil war and military dictatorship. The project was also, at least in part, a reaction to the rapacious redevelopment of Seoul, the loss of the city’s historic fabric and its rapid embrace of the culture of bigness and congestion. That it was christened a “City to Recover Lost Humanity” tells us much about its creators’ intentions.

It is useful to remember that in this time of everything and everyone being networked, there is much to be learned and resources to be used. In America, we push to be ahead of the curve, to build on what is there and get to the next frontier - often chasing profit. In this case, worthy of an even longer article it seems to me, we have a culture that was so badly damaged by immense political forces, that is being rebuilt with values rarely if ever found on this scale in America. As the writer states in a less than artful manner, "The idea that a city, right now, be dedicated solely to print and that an industrial estate could be a place of architectural pilgrimage could not be more heartening, more encouraging to anyone who delights in those very old information technologies – books and buildings."

So let's fantasize for a moment, especially those of us from hastily built suburbs who grew up in the shadows of strip malls that grew obese with box stores... what if these towns built around parking lots and warehouse buildings were converted into regional publishing centers, if the Walmarts and Bed, Bath & Beyonds and Best Buys and Michael's and Circuit City's and Targets became publishing houses and printers and IT centers for self-publishing, the architecture repurposed and opened up, made sustainable and innovative and more organic.

I gotta get my hands on the MIT Press book Big Box Reuse, by Julia Christensen. I saw it at Harvard Bookstore and really should have bought it!

It's a disease, man

We're all talking about healthcare right now, right? And what a conversation! I'm not going to go into the endless frustrations I experience in even hearing the word "healthcare" at this point, as this isn't the venue. I'll just briefly say that Kai Wright nails it here over at The Root - thanks to Mr. Wright for it - and when you weren't looking, the Columbia Journalism Review started saying everything right about the media and the endless goings-on in this crazy new info-saturated world. In relation to the healthcare "debate," see this fine post from Megan Garber - and thanks to Ms. Garber!

But my concern is how is Obama's crazy new vision of healthcare going to deal with a little disorder you and I might just share? I'm talking, of course, about bibliomania. And Alan Bisbort is talkin' about it too over at the Hartford Advocate:

On many Saturday mornings, I load the trunk of my car with whatever used books are piling up in my basement and drive to Whitlock's in Woodbridge or Niantic Book Barn in Niantic. Some of this is a holdover from the days when I sold books at a flea market in Washington, D.C., and, before that, worked at a bookshop on Capitol Hill. Most of it, however, results from my chronic case of bibliomania. I don't want cash for the old books. I want to trade them for more books. I just can't seem to ever have enough books.

Ah, the confessions of an addict. I'm pleased he mentioned one of my favorite used bookstores, Whitlock's. It's a helluva barn!

I've always gone there with my partner, who glories in an image of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg looking "distinctly as though they might have just ducked behind the jetty for a quickie" on a book jacket on his blog here. More thoughts on book jackets to come, apparently. Consider yourself warned.

Think before you Acquire

I'm all for those with good ideas getting credit, but with book publishing in free fall and everyone trying to figure out how to fix it, maybe some of the larger NY houses can stop acquiring flash-in-the-pan projects that will only clog up shelves in sad used bookstores that people who like reading avoid, where cheap people buy birthday gifts on the way to the party, sitting in their car erasing the price written in pencil inside the book.

Case in point: Three Rivers will publish a book version of Awkward Family Photos, the blog that is funny once but not really worth a second visit. This follows HarperStudio announcing a book version of the This Is Why You're Fat blog, last March. Again, funny once.

I guess there should be a place for just plain ol' product, but this is only feeding the whole "if I come up with a basic concept, I can sell it as a book!" idea, which in turn creates persistent, misguided people pestering editors who are hustling for new ideas to reach their acquisition targets.

I just want to try to at least slow if not stop this trend before we see Awkward Boners: The Book.

Thank you.