The pros and cons of print-on-demand

[moonmoth]

Pro: You can get copies of old books that would otherwise be rare and expensive.

Con: The covers are computer-generated.

Bill

[Bacchus]

I see what you mean by the cover - a generic "old thing" type one?

Overall though, I'm in favour of the process.  Yes each unit is more costly, but no-one is left with a huge pile of unwanted books in the corner of the room.

And it's easier to have an updated version and no need to pulp the previous one. 

everyone's a winner 

MAlcolm

[areich]

Haha, that's great.
Can you edit the title at all?

[moonmoth]

Can you edit the title at all?

I didn't have that sort of access.  I bought it from a UK bookshop through AbeBooks UK, and they didn't give any kind of direct link to the bookshop to make such arrangements, not that I thought of it at the time.  Maybe the bookshop can affect how it is printed; now I have an email address, from their acknowledgement of the order, I have emailed them to let them know of the error.  It's not really a problem, anyway.

The interior is a good photo or scanned reproduction, very legible, but the plates are not as good as the on-line version.

Bill

[Andrew McCabe]

Pro: You can get copies of old books that would otherwise be rare and expensive.

Con: The covers are computer-generated.

Bill

Isn't it nice to have "and a non-breaking space" ( &NBSP ) spelled out rather than having a dull old space between the letters. Extra value.

Seriously though, the cover design is hardly important and you could choose to have the book rebound as a hardback it you know a good bookbinder, as I've done with almost all my good books, which you can see here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/sets/72157622319982118/detail/

[moonmoth]

I don't know any bookbinders, but I've seen your books in your other posts and they make the idea quite tempting.

Bill

[areich]

The prices for bookbinding seem to be much higher here, though I've only inquired in two places.
I was quoted 90€ for one not very thick book and that is many times what you paid.
I have a few offprints that were bound by collectors and they are attractive as are yours.
Not to mention how useful it is to hvae loose articles bound properly.

[Andrew McCabe]

The prices for bookbinding seem to be much higher here, though I've only inquired in two places.
I was quoted 90€ for one not very thick book and that is many times what you paid.
I have a few offprints that were bound by collectors and they are attractive as are yours.
Not to mention how useful it is to hvae loose articles bound properly.

It costs me €19 per-book plus €5 for the gold-block lettering, which is inexpensive in the context of the cost/value of numismatic books. Some special services may cost a few euro more, e.g. repairs. I get it done in Amsterdam which seems to have many such bookbinders. I think the price makes sense for them due the volume of orders they get. They don't do mail-orders, presumably the hassle in the context of a low turnover business is not worth it - I did ask.

[moonmoth]

For less valuable works, there is another option.  Various types of binding are available at copy shops.  A while ago I bought a copy of Guido Bruck's book on [insert auction site here] and it turned out to be a photocopy, which just fell out of its cheap binding.  I made a good photocopy of the photocopy and comb bound it at work.  Clear plastic sheets serve as covers.  You can also bind in copies of articles, as I did here.

You can also get spiral bindings and permanently glued bindings.

This comb-bound book is A4 size and you can not only open it flat, but fold it right round without any damage.

Bill

[dougsmit]

While most of us are too old fashioned to accept the direction of 21st Century publishing, one answer may be publishing for the new technologies like Amazon's Kindle books.  As the screens become more eye-friendly and more of us realize our inability to find that box in the attic that contains some of our less frequently used references, we may have to break from our addiction to killing trees in the name of education.   Will a new generation of scholars be more willing than we are to abandon the feel of paper bound in leather?  I only wish I knew which format would win the digital publishing wars.  I for one would love to go to a coin show with every coin reference even written loaded in a Kindle. 

If I am correct, a thousand years from now much of the scholarship of our age will be lost because man will have lost the ability to read .doc and view .jpg.  Will monks of the 22nd century keep our data files converted to whatever the then current formats might be?   Of course most of the writings of ancient times rotted away for lack of being considered worth being copied.  History repeats. 

[Robert_Brenchley]

At least a few books have managed to survive for a couple of thousand years or so. Will digital files?

[slokind]

It is much easier to create and constantly update digital redundancy.
Digital storage is not an alternative to a book as much as it is a back-up to a book.
Pat L.