We’d like to hear what sort of things you’d like help with: from basic level introduction to specific topics – such as designing project notebooks, embedding multimedia links via QR codes and preparing books for printing via our Short Run Printing Service. If there’s interest we can run specific workshops aimed at transferring our experiences of working with kids in schools to use bookleteer, or with other community groups.

Each workshop place will cost about £20 (UKP) and will include complimentary Alpha Club membership, discount on Short Run Printing Service orders and a free pack of new Medium size StoryCubes. You’ll be able to book places online via eventbrite.

We’d also like to hear whether people would prefer the sessions to be run during the day or evening – we may alternate if it helps more people take part.

Please contribute with your suggestions and requests – we’d like these sessions to be as useful and focused on your needs as possible. You can post comments here, or add them to the discussion on Facebook.

Pitch Up Publish 10: Augmented Reading took place last Thursday and thanks to our excellent participants I had a fantastic afternoon. Alan Chamberlain from Mixed Reality Lab, David Crowley and Jeremy Millar from the RCA, James Bridle and Josh, Rob and Fabia from getmorelocal were knowledgable, inspiring, provocative and entertaining and I ended the afternoon with more questions than answers and hope that we can get together for another attempt to unravel the potential of augmented reading in the future!

Plenty of arm waving during discussions – got to be a good sign!

Each of the participants had their own take on what counts as augmented reading and it was great that this covered online and offline, technological and no-tech concepts. Discussions around questions of whether augmenting written text with audio, video or intereactive content augments or diminishes the reading experience, what role do books-as-objects play in our life as we move towards electronic readers and iPhone apps and how much we can expect readers to construct their own reading experience were fascinating and opened up new ways for me to think about books, their place in our lives and authoring and reading.

Getting hands-on and exploring augmented reading through a bookleteer project that combined eBooks, StoryCubes, Second Life and QR codes

One of the most interesting conversations for me was hearing everyone’s ideas about the bookleteer eBooks and StoryCubes and how these might be used to augment the creation, reading and symbolism of books and text. We talked a lot about collaborative construction of stories and text especially how the StoryCubes hide some stories at the same time as they allow you to reveal others and considered how bookleteer might allow groups to collaboratively produce eBooks. This was such an intriguing question that we’re currently trying to figure it out as we collaborate with the Augmented Reading participants to produce an eBook of our cumulative notes. I’ll let you know how it turns out.. 

Stripes rule! But checks are pretty cool too..

(All photos by Karine and Shalene – good work girls!)

It was a busy week in the studio last week. Thursday was PU&P 10: Augmented Reading which I’ll write about soon and on Wednesday we hosted a private PU&P for Tony White and his creative writing students from Brunel University.

Tony has been working with the Brunel students to encourage the use of writing as a way of understanding different disciplines. The students have been given the task of producing a piece of work inspired either by the working-class social history archive at Brunel University or by conversation and encounter with a person working in a different discipline. Wednesday gave them the opportunity to visit the studio and play with Bookleteer which is the format they will use to present these pieces of writing. I’m looking forward to seeing what they produce.

Tony is an old friend of Proboscis and an experienced bookleteer. In the summer of 2009 he created a  series of eBooks as part of the Balkanising Bloomsbury project while he was writer in residence at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) supported by the Leverhulme Trust through their artists in residence programme. The story for Balkanising Bloomsbury was created by cutting up, remixing and re-narrativising fragments from various sources including the Sydney Morning Herald, transcripts from the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Richard Burton translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. You can find the Balkanising Bloomsbury eBooks on diffusion.org.uk.