On Monday, the Guardian published an article in which the novelist Jonathan Franzen condemned ebooks, warning that they have a negative effect on literature, and may actually be damaging to society. Whilst I’m inclined to agree with his statements about the nature of physical books, that they are permanent and reassuring tangible objects – monuments [...]
Entries Tagged as 'eBooks'
Jonathan Franzen vs The ebook
February 1st, 2012 No Comments
Tags: creative process · eBooks · ideas · technology · writing
Poetry & short story pamphlets with bookleteer
January 26th, 2012 No Comments
I’ve been thinking a fair bit about bookleteer’s role in creating poetry pamphlets and short story collections, and the lack of much of either from budding bookleteers. It’s boggling – they suit the format perfectly as portable, pocket sized A6 books, or the grander A5 size, and can be made very quickly without any design [...]
Tags: bookleteer · bookreader · diffusion · eBooks · writing
In the Margins
January 19th, 2012 No Comments
This recent article from the Guardian Books blog, ponders whether or not it’s acceptable to make notes in the margins of books. Reading it, I was reminded of how annotating draft bookleteer eBooks during the editing and proofing stages of Material Conditions was an invaluable part of the process. We were able to quickly transform the [...]
Tags: bookleteer · creative process · eBooks · eNotebooks · material conditions
Material Conditions, Series 1 – Epilogue
December 16th, 2011 No Comments
Yesterday, Proboscis launched the first series of Material Conditions, a set of eight eBooks created with bookleteer, asking professional creative practitioners to reflect on what the material conditions for their own practice are, especially now in relation to the climate of change and uncertainty brought about by the recession and public sector cuts – part [...]
Tags: bookleteer · creative process · diffusion · eBooks · material conditions
Material Conditions – Launching 15/12/11
December 9th, 2011 No Comments
On December 15th we are launching a new series of eBook commissions called Material Conditions. This series asks professional creative practitioners to reflect on what the material conditions for their own practice are, especially now in relation to the climate of change and uncertainty brought about by the recession and public sector cuts. The contributors [...]
Tags: bookleteer · diffusion · eBooks · events · inspiration · material conditions · news · ppod · Short Run Printing
Project 18
November 18th, 2011 No Comments
Project 18, a collaboration between Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service and MAP, looked at what it’s like to be 18 now, and what it was like to be 18 in the past. This eBook, uploaded earlier this week to Diffusion, is a collection of stories gathered by young people from some of the older participants [...]
Tags: eBooks · inspiration · inspiring uses · museums · sharing
Agencies of Engagement – A creative thinking and doing tool
November 16th, 2011 No Comments
In April 2011, Proboscis began a collaboration with the Centre for Applied Research in Education Technologies (CARET) and Crucible at the University of Cambridge, on a research project exploring the nature of groups and group behaviours within the context of the university’s communities and the design of software platforms for collaboration. Our output of this [...]
Tags: eBooks · engagement · inspiration · inspiring uses
Publish & Print On Demand – October’s eBooks
November 9th, 2011 1 Comment
October saw a combo of eBooks created with bookleteer and printed using our Short Run Printing Service – ‘Picnic: Order, Ambiguity and Community’ and ‘Sites and Strategies’. ‘Picnic: Order, Ambiguity and Community’ by Kevin Harris, an author and community development commentator, and Gemma Orton, an artist, is an illustrated essay focusing on the relationship between [...]
Tags: bookleteer · eBooks · events · inspiring uses · portfolios · ppod · Short Run Printing
Narrative Immersion
October 27th, 2011 1 Comment
I focused on how technology can enhance and change our engagement with narratives in a previous post, so I’m going to step back and look at the highly immersive nature of text-based books as a medium. After recently finishing a book and scanning my shelves for my next literary foray, my eyes settled on a [...]
Tags: augmented · book · eBooks · ideas · technology
Shuffling Narrative
October 20th, 2011 1 Comment
After my previous post speculating on the ways touchscreen devices will change the way readers engage with books and other texts in the future, I recalled an interesting example in the present. The iPhone and iPad ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad‘ e-book app provides an option to re-order the hectic, backwards and forth narrative [...]
Tags: augmented · eBooks · ideas · technology
“A Magazine Is An iPad That Does Not Work”
October 18th, 2011 1 Comment
Yesterday I watched a video on YouTube of a child attempting to manipulate a magazine as if it were an iPad. Eh? Bear with me. As expected, the futile motions and the child’s baffled reactions are pretty funny, but it also made me ponder once again how touchscreen devices and future developments in technology will [...]
Tags: augmented · eBooks · electronic · ideas · ipad
New eBook Design!
October 12th, 2011 No Comments
After some tinkering and testing, we’ve just uploaded the new eBook back cover designs to the bookleteer server. Alongside an improved colophon layout, all eBooks generated with bookleteer now automatically create a QR code link as well as a short URL, to the online bookreader version, featured on the bottom left corner of the back [...]
Tags: bookleteer · design · eBooks · inspiring uses · qr code · user guide
Book-Making Workshop at New Cross People’s Library – 10th September
September 7th, 2011 No Comments
This Saturday, the 10th of September, we’ll be running a book-making workshop at the New Cross People’s Library, now reopened after its closure by the council in May, and currently staffed by local volunteers, aided by Bold Vision. We’re asking participants to bring lists and photos of their favourite books, to create a set of [...]
Tags: bookleteer · collaboration · eBooks · events · library · workshop
Diffusion Archive Highlight – City As Material: An Overview
August 3rd, 2011 No Comments
A document of the five City As Material events we ran in London last year, this eBook collects the blog posts penned after each event, a selection of photographs taken, as well as an introduction to the project and our motives for undertaking it. Created in place of an individual eBook for Sonic Geographies, due [...]
Tags: bookleteer · bookreader · city as material · collaboration · diffusion · eBooks · inspiration · inspiring uses · pitch in & publish
Diffusion Archive Highlight: Expeditions in Paper Science
June 29th, 2011 No Comments
Created at our first Pitch Up & Publish event by Matthew Sheret, co-founder of We Are Words + Pictures, Expeditions in Paper Science is a compilation of blog posts written for his website. Matthew says: “I’ve long been interested in the idea of physicalising web articles, and while an industry has solidified around POD in [...]
Tags: bookleteer · diffusion · eBooks · inspiring uses · pitch up & publish · workshop
