[WEB4LIB] RE: Books on Demand

[Dan Lester]

My wife, Gail, retired a year ago as librarian at Hewlett-Packard here
in Boise.  This is the home of the LaserJet and related products.
Anyway, in late 99 they were running a beta test of Print on Demand in
house for employees.  They had a number of standard, copyright free,
titles that you could get printed in your choice of sizes, bindings,
etc.  They also printed blank books, diaries, and so forth.  The
employees paid a couple dollars each, with the money going to charity.
She bought some 25 books in all.  A couple of diaries she writes in
daily; Jules Verne, Heidi, and other classics for the grandkids; and a
number of others.  All of them seem to hold up very well.  They're
perfect bound, but so are all the paperbacks you buy.  I couldn't tell
the quality of the books from the typical trade paperback, except that
for this test you could put in one page of text of your choice so that
it could be "customized" as a gift, as your diary, etc.

Since Gail isn't at HP any more (early retirment option in one of
their cutbacks), I don't know the status of their particular system,
but know they're not the only one producing such systems.  I think the
main target audience for POD isn't libraries, but consumers.  Sure,
libraries could be interested, and at least one interesting
possibility is libraries having such systems to produce copies of best
sellers, OP books, and so forth for patrons on demand. Some libraries
charge for reserving best sellers, or rent them, so why not let the
patron who wishes to get his own copy to do so?  When we get a thesis
from UMI/Proquest for someone on ILL, they're sent to gift review when
the patrons return the loan.  Some are added to the collection, some
aren't.  The same principle could work with the POD items.

The options and possibilities for libraries just keep on expanding, as
long as we're willing to embrace them when they're appropriate.

cheers

dan


 Wednesday, July 11, 2001, 9:49:07 AM, you wrote:

JK> The website cited below concentrates on the binding aspect, which--as far
JK> as libraries are concerned--may be the most factor in Print on Demand.
JK> Our local Barnes & Noble had a Print on Demand machine running more than a
JK> year ago, but from what I saw of the bindings then, they were totally
JK> inadequate for repeat library use.
JK> The production-scale binding machines I've seen depicted fill large rooms
JK> and cost hundreds of thousands, so if someone has invented a better
JK> mousetrap, more power to them...(I'll believe it when I see one standing up
JK> to heavy circ traffic).
JK> On the other hand, how much worse can the bindings be than some that are
JK> produced now by some of the major publishers?





-- 
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com  www.gailndan.com  Stop Global Whining!