bookleteer members will have noticed a few changes to the site in September and October as we’ve pushed through a series of updates, changes and fixes to the platform. Here’s a quick run down of the most important of these from a member’s perspective, since many more were ‘under the hood’.
First Time eBook & StoryCube Generation
We’ve streamlined the process of generating eBooks and StoryCubes by making the initial button on the Create pages into ‘Upload & Generate PDFs’.
eBook & StoryCube PDF Thumbnails
This week we’ve implemented a change to replace the generic PDF icon with actual thumbnails of each PDF’s first sheet. This is designed to make it easier to distinguish different publications when shown in lists (such as the Inspirations or My Publications pages) and to give a quick preview once your eBooks and StoryCubes have been generated.
My Publications Page
Inspirations Page
Adding Images, PDFs & My Gallery
We have completely changed the way images and PDFs are added to eBooks and StoryCubes – there are now three ways to add an image :
upload a file from your computer
enter a URL for an image already online (for instance on Flickr)
browse through your gallery and use an image already uploaded
Create eBook Upload image from computer
Create eBook Page Insert Image from URL
Create eBook Page Add image from gallery
Create StoryCube Upload image from computer
Create StoryCube Page Insert image from URL
Create StoryCube Page Insert image from gallery
PDFs can also be chosen by either uploading a new file from your computer or selecting from a previously uploaded file in your gallery.
Create eBook Page Upload PDF
Create eBook Insert PDF from gallery
Create StoryCube Upload PDF from computer
Create StoryCube Insert PDF from gallery
Members can use the My Gallery page to review (and delete if necessary) any image files or PDFs in their account. My Gallery Page
Facebook Integration
Lastly, for those of you who use facebook, we’ve integrated bookleteer’s login so that you can automatically login to bookleteer when you are also logged in to facebook.
Le Dot is an A6, 12 page, black and white zine by Anthony Zinonos. Each page has a clipping from an old photograph, and an orange dot sticker placed in somewhere that interacts with it in a comical way. It’s such a simple idea, but it works surprisingly well. I love how the sparse white background contrasts strikingly with the glaring orange dots, and highlights how alien they look compared to the black and white images, yet they still fit so perfectly. It was also easy to make it seems; just photocopied and stapled.
Another zine by Anthony, “theBLUEbits”, works in a similar idea; this time sticking hand cut pieces of blue paper with the images.
These have got me thinking about how easy it would be to make similar zines with bookleteer. Readers could download the base eBook, then customise it with their own materials, or a separate downloadable sheet with pre-designed shapes. Pop-up zines could also be created, in the same way that Mandy’s Tangled Threads eBook had a page with cut-out inserts and instructions. Swapping these around with other readers would be great, to see how many variations on a single template could be found.
This set of Storycubes was part of a briefing pack for the Perception Peterborough workshops, set up to develop environmental initiatives and tackle green issues that Peterborough might be facing in the future. Created by Matt Huynh and Proboscis, these beautiful cubes were intended t0 visually display the themes in the project and kick start ideas. A set of eight cubes, linked together with stickers, they can be manipulated into many shapes, each formed side showing a set of illustrations with a common theme.
I love Matt Huynh’s style; wonderfully quirky and charming, they work so well on the small panels, almost resembling an abstract comic, or an illustrated Rubik’s cube. Whilst twisting the cubes into different forms, its hard to resist becoming mesmerised, as the different colours and shapes unfold inwards and outwards, kaleidoscopically.
It would be interesting to see comic authors working within this format, each set of panels representing short tales that can be switched around, letting the reader form the story by making different shapes. This relates to Hypercomics, which I’ve blogged about before, where different outcomes are possible with each read, shifting the reading experience from flat and passive, to three dimensional and interactive.
I stumbled across this gem when following an excellent Zines page on Facebook, run by Alex Zamora of Fever Zine. An A5, 15 page, black and white illustrated Zine by the Lindström Effect collective, “HADRÖN” is a mock instruction manual for the Large Hadron Collider, in the style of IKEA furniture instructions.
The comical idea of using a self-assembly furniture guide for one of the most expensive and complicated scientific experiments ever is ludicrously funny, and it works so well as the diagrams and typefaces are spot on; there’s even a CERN logo in the vein of IKEA’s. I’ve never had to assemble any IKEA furniture, but I’ve heard many tales of frustration from those that have – the LHC might have turned out very differently if the engineers had followed this guide (I’m sure the Lindström Effect might even cite personal experience as inspiration for this Zine).
James Leach is an anthropologist at the University of Aberdeen who has conducted field-work in Papua New Guinea for approximately 17 years. I recently spoke to him by Skype to talk about a project which also involved two of his friends, Porer and Pinbin from the village of Reite, who had travelled to the UK in August 2009. Part of their visit to London included participating in the British Museum’s Melanesia Project. This project was designed to gain insight into the BM’s ‘largely unstudied’ Melanesian collections. Although I won’t get into to too much of the project’s overall aims and process (see both James’ work and the BM link for more details), part of the project involved inviting people from different areas of Melanesia to provide context about the objects in the collection by explaining how these objects are made, are used, and what their significance is. The exchange also represented an opportunity for the BM to build new relationships with the populations from where these objects originated.
Sample project: Melanesia Project
According to James, both Porer and Pinbin knew a lot about materials and the ways in which some of these objects were made which meant that the exchange could lead to some fascinating insights. Having worked with James in the past, they were also familiar with how to work with anthropologists.
As part of the exchange, James invited Giles Lane to drop by and demonstrate how to use the eBooks to record the event. Giles showed them all how to put the eBooks together and also brought a small portable Polaroid printer that could quickly and easily print digital pictures in a small format that could then be glued onto the eBook pages.
This was certainly a case of using the eBooks to capture information (see here for previous post where I introduce what I mean in by this) – in this case James described using the eBooks asa way to produce a realtime record that involved “capturing the moment of what we were doing and what we were seeing”. Representatives of the BM were also recording the exchange but using the eBooks served as a complimentary archive of what had happened. While the exchange was taking place, James would write down some of what Porer and Pinbin were saying in both English and Tok Pisin next to the images glued down in the eBooks. The addition of the eBooks to the process was partly challenging for James because it involved an additional set of tasks in an already hectic and brief exchange. Nevertheless, James felt that it proved to be a positive addition to the session because it provided a better record of the process of the exchange itself. He felt that although other methods for collecting and presenting information were better suited to the documentation of the knowledge being imparted of the objects by his two friends, the way in which the eBooks were used provided a simple, quick and accessible way of sharing what had taken place during the meeting.
Later on, the eBooks were re-scanned and subsequently reprinted into the professionally printed and bound version of the eBooks. James then distributed copies of the new books in Reite as well as at the local University in Papua New Guinea, and other regional institutions who were interested in what they had been doing. The eBooks were useful for giving people a feel for what had taken place, particularly for people who were unfamiliar with anthropology as a discipline.
Challenges, recommendations and suggestions
James used a wonderful way of describing his work as an anthropologist as being comprised of “moments”. He felt that the eBooks were used at the right moment in the process of conducting this type of research. Although he was unsure as to how this type of practice could fit in other parts of his work, he could see how this process would be helpful in situations requiring the documentation of how people “respond to images or information for themselves”.
He also suggested that as objects in themselves, the professionally bound versions of the eBooks were useful as a way to disseminate general information about the exchange:
“[…] As something to give people, they’re an extremely nice thing. People are very keen. I also took some to an anthropology conference before I went [to Papua New Guinea] and would show them to people and they’d immediately say “Oh, is that for me?” People kind of like them. They’re nice little objects.”
However, since many people of Papua New Guinea don’t have access to Internet, resources like Bookleteer or the Diffusion website proved to be significantly less of an advantage for distributing this information (they obviously can’t download a copy of the eBook).
I want to come back to the way James used the idea of “moments” to describe his work and apply it to the way in which the eBook was designed and used. We could say that each project I have described to date was composed of a series of moments and that nested within these projects was the eBook component which in itself was composed of its own series of moments. In reference to my previous post on the distinction between capturing and publishing, the trajectory of how eBooks were designed and used in some of these projects was composed of both capturing and publishing moments. For example, the way in which the eBook was used on the Melanesia Project included both a capturing moment as part of the exchange with the British Museum and a publishing moment in which Giles and James printed-out scanned copies of the original eBooks and made them available online or passed hardcopies out to people who were interested in learning more about the project (or, in some cases, who just wanted to get their hands on a free neat little object).
These series of moments were significant because they each involved different challenges and successes. In James’ case, it seemed both the capturing and publishing moments proved valuable – in the case of the former as a way to capture “the moment of what we were doing and what we were seeing” during the exchange, in the case of the latter as a way to distribute printed copies of the eBooks. But both capturing and publishing in this particular case also faced challenges that suggested there were some additional key moments that made-up an eBook’s trajectory as part of a project. Here are two moments that I want to add to describe an eBook’s trajectory:
Appropriation: James had only a cursory knowledge of how the eBooks worked before the exchange took place. In other cases, (for example see Ruth Sapsed’s work with Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination) we saw how people had attended “Pitch-up and Publish” events as a way to test the eBooks and decide whether or not they could fit into the way these people executed their projects. For the Melanesia Project, James took the risk of adding the eBooks as an extra element to the project in part because he trusted Giles’ work and his abilities to adapt the eBooks to these particular circumstances. In this case, therefore, moments of appropriation and capturing took place at the same time. I will therefore use appropriation to describe how people decide the way in which eBooks relate to their pre-existing practices for capturing and publishing information.
Design and printing: It may seem that “design and printing” and “publishing” should be categorised as part of the same moment. The reason for making the distinction is that I want to highlight how the physical process of composing the eBook’s pages and physically making the eBook, whether it be printing it out or cutting and folding its pages into a notebook, are distinct from the publishing category I defined earlier. Both capturing and publishing necessarily involve designing and printing an eBook. But the way in which they are designed and printed and the way in which such a design will be evaluated as part of the project will likely be very different.
Of course, in making-up these four distinct analytical categories, I may be over-emphasising distinctions between moments that are in fact all bundled-up and confused in time and space. But the reason for making these distinctions is so that I can begin to develop a typology of how eBooks are part of all of these very different kinds of projects.
Next time, I’ll examine the Diffusion website in greater detail.
I’ve just made a simple custom notebook for all participants of our first Pitch In & Publish: City As Material event, based on the topic of “Streetscapes”. It contains an overview of City As Material as a theme, as well as some suggestions and interesting locations to kick-start the creative process, and of course, blank pages for idea’s and sketches. It will be interesting to see if and how this notebook is used, as personally I never seem to plan any creative work, preferring to launch straight in. Obviously this affects how idea’s are formed, and often their practical application might suffer as a result, or on the upside, be far more fresh and exciting then I had ever anticipated.
The creative process, and the difficulty in expressing pure idea’s across mediums interest me, and I’ll be looking into how people are inspired to create, and the methods they use to do so, on the bookleteer blog in the near future. It would be great for it to become more than a one-sided blog, and become a platform for people to exchange ideas and advice via feedback, perhaps even collaborate; almost an online Pitch In & Publish session.
While Mandy was out at lunch Alice and I pounced on the StoryCube puzzle she’s working on because, well, because it looks gorgeous! Pencil sketches of farmyard animals, sea creatures, flowers, kittens, insects and snakes are scattered across a set of nine cubes and lie on a background of shades of blue. The sketches cross over from one side of the cube to another but change as you rotate the cube so that viewing different sides give the sketches a fantastical feel where kittens have flowers for feet and cows have snakes instead of mouths.
The nine cubes are intended as a puzzle with the goal being to match up all of the sketches of one type across all nine cubes. Sounds simple doesn’t it.. well, Alice and I didn’t manage it in the time Mandy was out for lunch!
ps. I also have to say good-bye today. This will be my last regular post for the bookleteer blog because I begin a full-time research position on Monday. I’ve been working with Proboscis on and off for the past five years and it’s been an incredible journey. I can’t thank Giles and Alice enough for the opportunities I’ve had while I’ve been here – and especially for giving me the chance to meet and work with all the fabulous talented people who’ve been in the studio over that time. Good luck with everything, folks!
As with every previous case study I’ve posted up to now, this week’s case is an example of a very distinctive context for the design and use for the eBooks. Today’s post is the first of two cases that involve the British Museum which means we’re dealing with a far larger institution than in previous cases. Nevertheless, as I hope you will see, this case has quite a few similarities with other approaches we’ve explored to date.
I had the chance to pay a visit to Julie Anderson, Assistant Keeper for Ancient Sudan and Egyptian Nubia at the BM on the 14 September to talk about her work with the eBooks. Julie is the project leader for what is known as the Berber-Abidiya archaeological project in Sudan. She and her collaborator Dr Salah eldin Mohamed Ahmed in Sudan have been working with Proboscis to develop a version of the eBook as part of this project. This was my chance to find out a bit more about the project.
Sample project: Excavations in the Temple Precinct of Dangeil
On the fabulous The Literary Platform I came across this video Ideo have produced showing three concepts they have created around the future of the book. I love Ideo, they consistently come up with inventive and imaginative technological developments that take account of social factors and personal practices. However, I have to say, I am disappointed with their ideas for the future of the book and I’m surprised that they appear to have overlooked so many of the interesting questions around books as objects, the challenges of e-Readers and the augmented reading experience that are currently being considering in so much detail by others.
All three of the concept designs (called Newton, Coupland and Alice) are shown as prototypes for the iPad. This suggests to me that the idea that a book might be a souvenir of an experience (e.g. James Bridle) or an object for sharing (e.g. Bookcrossing) does not appear to have been considered in the design process. In my exploration of augmented reading over the past few months I have come to think of a book as the amalgamation of object, content, design, distribution method, author and reader. It might be getting a little pedantic but I would say that what Ideo have produced are prototypes for the Future of Reading rather than the Future of the Book.
So what will this future reading experience be? We are offered three versions.
Newton might best be described as an application for managing material already published on the Internet. It allows you to collate, compare and contrast different sources and materials around a particular topic.
Coupland is a form of book-related user-generated content and social network. Reading lists and recommendations can be compiled and shared allowing everyone to see and comment on the most popular books within a professional network. Individuals can contribute book reviews and content can be shared between different organisations and networks.
Alice combines hypertext, hypermedia and location-based services to create an augmented, reader-created narrative path through a story. Primarily presented as text-based Alice suggests that readers actions (in the example, tilting the iPad in a particular direction) might open up new branches to the story. Other actions might include being in a specific location where a particular set of GPS co-ordinates would trigger more of the story.
One of the most interesting aspects to me is how these future ‘books’ conceive of authors. While all three concepts require authors for the ‘book’ to be complete they each have a different model. Newton relies on writers who are producing content elsewhere on the Internet and Coupland relies on people within an organisation creating content for the ‘book’. Only Alice has bespoke writing and a dedicated author at the heart of the project which is then augmented by existing content. These approaches to authorship are not new of course but I find it fascinating that Ideo consider all of them to be examples of ‘books’ and I wonder how these fit with my concept of book-as-object-plus-content-plus-design-plus-distribution method-plus-reader. I can’t help feeling that the ecology of books is broader and more diverse than these concept designs acknowledge.
Proboscis have been invited to make a film that will be presented as part of a Leonardo/MIT mobile digital exhibition curated by Jeremy Hight. The film will provide an abstracted overview of Proboscis’ themes and projects over the past few years and will be made and illustrated by Alice. However, the process of making the film was begun by Mandy who drew up the storyboard which has now been converted into the Tangled Threads eBook.
Mandy’s starting point was a piece of text I wrote which aimed to invoke the imagery and metaphors often used by Proboscis to describe their projects. The text also provided points for jumping into more detailed overview of Proboscis’ work from the past few years. Mandy took this text and transformed it into an intricate and beautiful mix of words and illustrations.
Storyboard panel sketches for Tangled Threads
Mandy moved quickly to produce her initial sketches, discarding ideas and developing a single artistic strand. After creating the storyboard panels you can see above she worked on individual frames drawing them up in detail before digitally painted the images to produce a full-colour illustrated eBook.
At the back of the eBook are a number of illustrations for you to cut out and stick them into the allocated spaces throughout the pages. Instructions for doing this are provided on pages 1 and 2. Making Tangled Threads the very first pop-up eBook!
