There was an interesting article on Boston.com last Monday about a bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont experimenting with a ‘Books on Demand’ service. Essentially, a customer buys a book and a printing press on the premises downloads the text of the book from a database and prints it before your eyes.
The publishing world is closely following the experiment at Northshire, the first independent bookstore in the United States to install the clattering book machine. If Northshire can make money printing books downloaded from massive online catalogs, it will show how small brick-and-mortar bookshops might be able to match the overwhelming variety of products offered by a giant online retailer like Amazon.com.
The innovations over the last few years have staggered libraries. Instead of just books we are now trying to provide computers, movies, downloads, databases… the list is long, and growing. It’s an exciting time to work in a library, to be sure. I wonder how print on demand books could affect us? I’m interested in your thoughts, please leave them in the comments.
-Lichen
I do not believe it will have much of an effect on libraries. I buy books often, and it would be a wonderful way to shop for them but I borrow many more than I buy. The library is much more than a bookstore. It is a refuge from the stress of the world outside. It is a place to explore, to sample the riches of our collective knowledge. A quiet comfortable place to sample, to share and discover. I have found all my favorite authors there. And while I will then sometimes buy their books I will always be back to uncover more. Perhaps if I had the wealth to sample by buying I would use the library less, but I doubt it. I would still crave the sights of row upon row of ready-bound volumes, the smell of the paper, the ease with which I can borrow a book, or cd or video without the obligation to read or listen to the end that comes when I have spent my increasing valuable money on them.