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News & ArtsThursday, January 28, 2010
Books University Book Store Welcomes the Machine
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 2:33 PM
It is no good assuming that bookstores will simply survive because they ought. We have to do what we can to see that they do, as booksellers with not only an economic interest in books, but a sense of mission, for want of a better word, when it comes to selling books.
...
Think of it: all the books that Helene Hanff had to write to 84 Charing Cross Road in the sometimes vain hope of her booksellers finding affordable copies for her, can now be reprinted in minutes! I know, because the list of titles from Hanff's memoir was the first list of titles I checked for availability, and yes, they can all be had through the EBM!
Incidentally: If you love books and you haven't read 84, Charing Cross Road, you should fix that as soon as possible.
2
Between the Espresso machines and companies like Lulu and Blurb, this is a great time to be a book lover. I can't wait.
And, yeah, definitely nice to see one of these machines in action without an hour long bus ride.
And, yeah, definitely nice to see one of these machines in action without an hour long bus ride.
3
Sound Transit bus 522 stops at Ballinger and Bothell Way, a few hundred yards from the Third Place Books Espresso Book Machine. In addition, Amtrak has five daily trains to Portland where you can board the MAX Yellow line and visit the Rose City's fabulous Instabook III — "the Mr. Coffee of portable print-on-demand" — at Publication Studio http://publicationstudio.biz
5
If you can get to the light rail, just hop on any of the 70 series bus lines in the bus tunnel.
I'm salivating at the chance to read first edition French novels by the greats!
I'm salivating at the chance to read first edition French novels by the greats!
7
Hanff's Underfoot in Showbusiness, the Duchess of Bloomsbury, Q's Legacy, and Apple of my Eye are all good reads
9
@6 - There's no list as such, but if you go to the Third Place Press site (http://thirdplacepress.com/) you can do a search in their database of all the books they can print, but only 20 titles are shown and in a database as vast as they say, that can be bloody useless if you don't know exactly what you're after.
Vlad, the guy behind Third Place Press has been blogging interesting finds, though. Check him out: http://thirdplacepress.blogspot.com/
I'll be checking this out this weekend with a title or two from his blog.
Vlad, the guy behind Third Place Press has been blogging interesting finds, though. Check him out: http://thirdplacepress.blogspot.com/
I'll be checking this out this weekend with a title or two from his blog.
10
@6: According to their site: "Please ask at our information desk. With over 2 million public domain titles available through Google Books and over 1 million print-on-demand titles from local and international publishers ... Coming soon: a fully searchable internet database just for EBM titles in our U District store and online at ubookstore.com."
However, you may want to use the Third Place Book searchable database to get an idea of what's out there: http://thirdplacepress.com/ - Of course TPB and UWB not necessarily print the same stuff.
Third Place Books also has a nice blog about the whole ESM: http://thirdplacepress.blogspot.com/
However, you may want to use the Third Place Book searchable database to get an idea of what's out there: http://thirdplacepress.com/ - Of course TPB and UWB not necessarily print the same stuff.
Third Place Books also has a nice blog about the whole ESM: http://thirdplacepress.blogspot.com/
11
One thing I've noticed that is kind of annoying is when searching for an original (or specific) edition of a book (on ABE, for example), you now come across many many print-on-demand listings. Some use different text sources and so there are various listings for the same content. It just makes things a bit more cluttered.
12
I heartily second the recommendation of 84, Charing Cross Road.
@7, thanks! I should definitely read more of her books.
@7, thanks! I should definitely read more of her books.
14
I had a British pen pal and when she learned I had not read any Helene Hanff, she went on Amazon and bought me every single HH title! And since then, I've loaned each title to at least three people. I too urge folks to read them all.
15
It was a lot of fun watching it in action yesterday. When it poops out a book it's awesome. The gal running it at University Bookstore says it should be able to access a million and a half titles very soon. I mean, seriously -- in a few minutes I watched a book created before my eyes.
16
Apparently the UW machine won't be up and running for another week or two. The ones they're printing now are test books, etc.
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