Paige M. Gutenborg: a machine to print in minutes any given book. It is in the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge Massachusetts. It is a heavy investment for an independent bookstore, more than 100 000 usd, but as the owner of the bookstore, Mr Jeff Mayersohn, says :"We measure our business in awesomeness rather than in dollars." The opportunity to create with this machine is endless and it is a combination of the physical books with the new technology. Bookstores cannot keep a large inventory of all, they compete with giants like Amazon but with this service of books' database from Google and others, Harvard Bookstore can be ahead in the market. Mr Mayersohn said that in the Middle East, this machine is available and he mentioned the one at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. It would be commendable to see such inventions at every independent bookstore in every capital of the Arab world, where anyone could come up with his pdf file and print out copies of his creation, or download any book and circumvent any official decision that books should be censored and they might be a threat to the minds.
link to Harvard bookstore
link to books on demand
Link to Bibliotheca Alexandrina
2 comments:
I am thrilled, and just wondering about those in censorship, and their state of mind when they think about their future career path? They meticulously spend hours checking page by page when thousands of people are downloading banned videos and books. Depressing? now with this machine, they face a brutal reality!
Censorship is only a battle with the wind, when the technology today is so advanced in the flow of information. In the Arab World, the Paige M Gutenborg is at the Alexandria Library, a good start, but probably reserved to a few scholars. We'll have one day a more accessible machine to print on demand...
Post a Comment