Espresso Book Machine

The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a printing press that will print and deliver physical books within minutes and works much like a soda vending machine. The result is the print on demand principle, but without a publisher directly involved. The machine is an invention of the On Demand Books company.

Aimed at the library and book store market, the EBM does not require a factory setting and is small enough to fit in a retail store or small library room. The EBM can potentially allow readers to obtain any book title, even books that are out of print. The EBM’s software sends a PDF file to the book machine, which prints, binds, and trims the reader’s selection as a paperback book.cite web
title = First Espresso Book Machine Installed and Demonstrated at New York Public Library's Science, Industry and Business Library
publisher = PR Web
date = 2007-06-21
url = http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/6/prweb534914.htm
accessdate = 2007-10-16 ] cite web
last =
first =
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = End of the line for books?
work =
publisher = The Sydney Morning Herald
date = 2007-10-04
url = http://www.smh.com.au/news/essential-gadgets/end-of-the-line-for-books/2007/10/04/1191091259452.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2007-11-21 ]

History

Jason Epstein, veteran editor of such writers as Norman Mailer, Philip Roth and Gore Vidal, gave a series of lectures in 1999 in which he reflected on his experiences in publishing. Epstein mentioned in his speech that a future was possible in which customers would be able print an out-of-stock title on the spot, if a book-printing machine could be made that would fit in a store. At the time, Jeff Marsh, a St Louis engineer and inventor, had already constructed a prototype book printer that could both photocopy and book-bind. A friend of Marsh, present on one of the lectures, informed Epstein. The editor together with Dane Neller, former President and CEO of Dean and Deluca, licensed Marsh's invention and founded On Demand Books.

The first EBM

The first Espresso Book Machine was installed and demonstrated on June 21 2007 at the New York Public Library’s Science, Industry, and Business Library. For a month, the public was allowed to test the machine by printing free copies of such public domain classics as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and “Songs of Innocence” by William Blake. The public domain titles were provided by the Open Content Alliance (OCA), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles.

Economic consequences

If this idea breaks through, the EBM could change the book market. The direct-to-consumer model of the EBM eliminates shipping, warehousing, returns and pulping of unsold books, and allows simultaneous global availability of millions of new and backlist titles. These characteristics may in the future lower prices to consumers and libraries, and allow greater royalties and profits to authors and publishers.

Locations

Beta versions of the EBM are placed at the World Bank Infoshop in Washington, DC and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. An EBM has been installed at the University of Alberta campus Bookstore.

Additional EBMs will be available to the public in the fall of 2007 at the New Orleans Public Library, the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, and at the Open Content Alliance in San Francisco.

An EBM is also installed at the University of Michigan Shapiro Undergraduate Libarary Cite web| title =UM Library: Arrival of Espresso Book Machine|url = http://www.lib.umich.edu//news/stories/arrival_of_espresso_book_machine_389.html

ee also

* The Long Tail

References

External links

* [http://www.ondemandbooks.com/ On Demand Books company website]