All That's Old is New Again

Publication on Demand is allowing everyday readers to access rare books they could not normally afford.

In September, Google Book Search announced a special partnership with On Demand Books in New York. Google has been scanning and collecting digital versions of millions of dusty public domain books for close to a decade. Now, through this partnership, readers will have the ability to turn those digital files into locally printed paperbacks.

Bookstores equipped with an Espresso Book Machine and access to On Demand Books' EspressNet catalogue allow customers to browse through the selection of millions of public domain titles available through this partnership and within minutes create a perfect bound paperback version.

Expanding the readers' ability to not only read these classic texts online, but actually get a replica version of the book is, in my mind, as significant an advance in the publishing world as the invention of mass market paperbacks was back in the 1930s.

Mass market paperbacks allowed books to be distributed into more markets and to more readers than ever before. Books were no longer just for the rich – the reduced price of the paperbacks allowed more people access to them. Similarly, Print on Demand (POD) technology opens up distribution opportunities on rare, out of print books to an even larger group.

Take, for example, my own experience at McMaster University.

The William Ready Division of Archives and Research in the Mills Memorial Library at McMaster owns a signed first edition of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine from 1895. Unsigned copies of this book are listed at Rare and Antiquarian booksellers for as much as $6,000 (U.S.), unattainable for the average reader. The McMaster library keeps its copy of the book on display behind glass. Up until November 2008, patrons were unable to do anything more than just look at it.

Now, thanks to the McMaster Library's mass digitization program, working with Kirtas Technologies, they have created a library of over 90,000 public domain titles from their archives that customers have access to. The first book made available using McMaster bookstore's Espresso Book Machine was a replica of The Time Machine, which retails for $14.99. Bibliophiles without access to huge sums of money can now experience the joy of owning a replica version of a classic text.

There are mass market paperback versions of the H.G. Wells classic available for less than $15, so one could argue that readers already have had easy access to that work, but this ignores the historical significance the “replica” version has in the hearts and minds of the readers. After all, the passion of book lovers is a very powerful force.

Consider this curious example. In December 2008, Titles Bookstore at McMaster created a very plain text slim volume of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. With very simply formatted text and a “no frills” cover much like the “no name” brand packaging style, this slim volume was made available for retail sale at the cost of printing, which was $2.50. At the same time, a McMaster Library replica version (a scanned replica of one of the first print runs of the timeless Dickens classic, complete with original illustrations, publisher ads, and which was about three times the size of the thinner volume) was produced and retailed for $14.99.

Last December, over 40 copies of the more expensive original edition replica were sold, while the more affordable version that tells the exact same story has still not sold a single copy. The good news is that the replica versions include a “fund-raising” proceeds fee, allowing the campus library to generate revenue. So while customers benefit from having access to a rare edition of a book for the first time, the library is also able to raise operating funds from the sale of that material.

It's a feel-good story all the way around. Technology is helping us appreciate old timeless classics in a new way.