As Slaw readers will know, one of the themes that recurs here quite frequently is the role of publishing and books in this culture of rapid technological change. Jason Epstein [1] has a few thoughts on the matter, some of which he shared in the keynote at the recent O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference 2009 [2] in New York. Epstein is someone you would very much want to listen to on the subject: now 81 years old, he created the Anchor Book imprint in the early 50s, launching the trade paper format; in 1963 he co-founded the New York Review of Books; and most recently he has founded On Demand Books [3], which has created the Espresso Book Machine [4] [vid].
The text of his talk [5] is available on the O’Reilly TOC site. I won’t try to summarize it — he ranges from Gutenberg to his Espresso (which can print and bind a book in four minutes), and tackles copyright, publishing infrastructures and the creations of groups along the way.
I should point out that O’Reilly TOC is (or also “has”) a blog [6] that those of you interested in publishing might like to follow.
[via Jeff Miller]