Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You guys are still missing my point, at least some of you. I'm not saying put the contents of the 
book online. I'm saying the publisher (ie copyright owner) should put accessory ("bonus") material 
online -- like good-resolution versions of photos that are badly reproduced in the typical 
non-fiction book. This is asking alot -- I'm advocating the publishers make a GIFT to their readers 
(a deserved gift with cover prices of new hardcovers pushing $35 in some cases).  But, at the same 
time, they can employ technology to make them and their products look a tad less antique. My wife is 
a high school English teacher. Trust me, most kids don't read books these days. They do, however, 
spend endless hours reading chatroom dialog and Myspace websites. Yeah, yeah, it sure ain't like 
them old days, but it is what it is and publishers can adapt or die off slowly -- kinda like record 
companies.

Music companies, by the way, have had all sorts of fits and starts with this concept. CD+ format had 
web-link content in some cases, sometimes to the artists' websites, sometimes to bonus tracks 
(typically in low-rez WinMedia or Quicktime formats), sometimes to preferential opportunities to buy 
tour tickets. DVDs are also more and more including web-oriented bonus material.

Even audiobooks, which only recently have dropped the cassette format en masse, are getting with the 
21st century and usually offer illustration material or other non-audio content, or sometimes and 
author interview, on the final disc of a set. By the way, audiobooks do their format a huge service 
by killing off cassette releases. The general rule was bottom-basement tape quality and duped by 
cavemen in a cave. Audibility was always an iffy proposition. CDs, the quality is better and 
consistent. And, they got around the "resume quandry" (ie many CD players don't have a resume 
function, although that's been solved in recent years) by putting track cuts every 3 minutes or so. 
Thus, worst case, you'd have to re-listen to 2:59 the next time you put the CD in the player. And 
the iTunes coders got into the act and put in the option to stitch all cuts on a CD together for 
more convenient loading of audiobooks into an iPod. I'd suggest the final convenience for audiobooks 
would be to include an unlock code on one of the CD's that allows the user to download the book from 
the iTunes store, already crunched to digi-compressed format and ready to load into the iPod.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "steven c" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Right, but I'm not saying make the printed book available. I'm saying make
> large/higher-rez versions
> > of the photos in a biography, for instance, available. Or, for a
> reported/journalistic book, perhaps
> > make transcripts of some or all interviews available, both for history and
> in the interest of
> > transparency. Many authors do some of this already on their own websites
> but it can take some
> > digging to find the material.
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Lou Judson" <loujudson@xxxxxxx>
> > To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 2:11 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)
> >
> >
> > I'd think that part of the slowness is fear that it will cut into sales
> > of their physical products, like who will buy it if they can download
> > it... Record companies are dealing with this in their own ways too.
> >
> > Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
> > 415-883-2689
> >
> > On Sep 2, 2006, at 9:45 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > By the way, one solution to all this is simple. Every publisher has a
> website today. Every book
> > > should have an online component where things like color images can be
> available. Publishers have
> > > been snail-slow in most cases to understand the multi-media potential of
> their products.
> >
> For the most part, the various projects of "web-izing" printed
> works are limited to those no longer under copyright...?!
>
> Steven C. Barr