Book Revolution?

NPR's Morning Edition is running a story on the Fastback Book Binder from Powis Parker, Inc.. The story's teaser is that, with this new, simple, low-cost book binder, there's no reason for any book to ever go out of print again. Why? How?

This booklover's utopia would happen like this: Publishers would put their book catalogs online (probably within a subscription-only database). Bookstores would own Fastback book binders. When you want a book that's not in your library, you'd go to the bookstore. If they don't have the book on the shelf, they could go to the online catalog of books, download the one you want, and print and bind a copy for you in a matter of minutes and at a cost of a few dollars. How awesome would that be?

But even if we don't reach that point right away, how cool would it be to replace all your three-ring binders and plastic-spiral bound photo-copied packets of paper with real bound books? It could happen:

Though Parker is still interested in expanding his firm's geographic reach, these days he's also using technological breakthroughs to enter new areas—most notably the rapidly growing on-demand publishing market. Later this year, he plans to unveil a new digital machine, called Model 8, that can be used to create documents and books from a desktop environment.

The digital version of Fastback will be able to bind documents up to 350 pages in the time it takes to walk to the water cooler.

"Right now, 98 percent of these kinds of documents created in offices or homes are bound with punch holes and rings," Parker said. "That gives you a pretty good idea of the size of the market we can go after."

I believe the NPR story pegged the price of these new digital machines at only $1300/ea. Cool.

Posted 05:57 AM | ai books life generally

You Deserve a Break Today

Today's Quote: "People are getting smarter nowadays. They are letting lawyers, instead of their consciences, be their guides." —Will Rogers

That would be funny if it weren't true. Somehow I've developed this idea that there has been a shift in the U.S. from a culture in which people tended to refrain from doing Act X because they thought Act X was wrong, to a culture where people only refrain from doing Act X if there's a law against it (and they think they'll get caught). In hugely general terms, it seems plausible to argue that such is shift is visible in the switch from some idea of "natural law" (say, in the 18th and perhaps early 19th centuries) to the more secular view we have today of the law as a social creation. But I think there's more to it than that, something having to do with a late 20th century shift in society and its laws from some sense of community responsibility to a near obsession with individual rights and liberties at the expense of all other values. Maybe. It's Monday, I'm just thinking out loud here.

And really what I'm thinking about is how great it would have been to have an extra week of holiday break, pace Three Years of Hell (which has undergone a nice redesign over the break), DG, and Musclehead (which has also been redesigned, but which may not be back to regularly scheduled programming yet). I suppose the bright side of starting earlier is that GW should also finish up a little earlier in the spring, something for which I'm sure I'll be grateful when the time comes. Next year the effect could be even more pronounced: GW is currently considering switching 2Ls and 3Ls from a 14-week semester to a 13-week semester. I haven't been following the issue too closely, but it sounds like the change would require us to switch from 50-minute classes to hour-long classes or something. Sounds fine with me.

If my holiday break had been longer, the main thing I would have done with the extra time would have been applying for summer work. I spent the bulk of yesterday sharpening the resume and crafting 15 cover letters for the upcoming Georgetown/GW Public Interest/Government Interview Program. I also investigated the Peggy Browning Fund Fellowships, applications for which are due (meaning must be received by) Jan. 15th. Looks like I'll be sending some overnight mailings in the next day or two.

What is that they say about rest for the wicked? Oops! My cauldron's smoking—gotta run.

Posted 05:38 AM | Comments (1) | law general law school