bookfutures

24 hour book...

2012-03-02T11:29:00.002Z

...was a pleasure to work on with writers in KL, Delhi, Vancouver and London.

Thanks to Ben Payne, Sarah Butler and all involved.

Go to www.spreadtheword.org.uk

to download ePub of

LEAP

One of the photos tweeted by Dave Martin as he wandered the route of the Number 4 Bus

London writers eat their way to inspiration

free the word in school

2012-02-14T15:32:00.001Z

article written for the free word centre website

Director of if:book and Free Word Associate Chris Meade explores the digital reading possibilities of the iPad and Kindle for school children.

Mr Greenwood is a wonderful teacher. His classes, which aren’t short of potentially difficult kids, are focused, fun and friendly. His classroom in Northwood Primary School is bright with evidence of its involvement in all kinds of initiatives; Paul uses new teaching resources to improve learning, not to tick boxes or satisfy his own agenda. When technical problems arise with the resources that he uses on the whiteboard and the iPads/iPods and computers which the kids handle confidently, he doesn’t panic but finds a solution whether by rebooting something or using pen and paper instead. Technology here is clearly a tool to do things better.

That sounds so simple, and yet it’s not the attitude to digital revolution if:book sees in many schools, where a gaping hole can open up in the space between technical hiccups and teacher hesitancy, into which many digital learning initiatives can fall into oblivion.

Paul Greenwood’s class is in one of the London schools where if:book is observing the use of iPads and Winged Chariot’s rather special apps of stories beautifully illustrated by artists from around Europe, for our Gulbenkian-funded research project, Stories To Touch.

With Wingedchariot’s own education experts, Norman Whitney and Ann Arscott, if:book has been observing how new media is used across the curriculum, and if:book associate Sasha Hoare filmed proceedings at Northwood, including wonderful interviews with pupils themselves, engaged in that same debate on the pros and cons of hardbacks v iPads and Kindles which seems to arise these days whenever two or more are gathered together.

Scruffy Kitty is a digital picture book available for the iPhone and iPad in five languages already with more to be added. Now Neal Hoskins, CEO of Winged Chariot and a fellow Free Word Associate, is developing this and other titles to be as useful as possible to schools, building a touch-sensitive, whiteboard-friendly web version, extending the range of languages stories can be read in, improving functionality and, with if:book, seeking the right formula for providing support, training and encouragement to build teacher confidence in using this stuff to ignite the readers of tomorrow.

These apps can be used to teach English, to give children their first encounter with a foreign language they will later study in detail, and to build a reading community in settings where many languages are spoken. Scruffy Kitty can be one story which every child in the school enjoys in their own first language. We’re off to talk to the Department for Education next. There is interest in our work, and more research and development needs to be done to find tangible evidence of the benefits of new devices and platforms on reading appetite and attainment.

In Mr Greenwood’s class the pupils appreciate all kinds of reading, and many are passionate about the app. One boy clutched the iPad I showed him to his chest and told me with fervour, “This is the future for reading. My dad said so.”

job advert

2012-02-14T14:33:00.001Z

Editor of Modern Poetry in Translation

After 8 years in post the current Editors have indicated their intention to retire at the end of 2012.

This is an exciting opportunity to become the Editor and the public representative of an internationally important poetry magazine, founded by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort and currently edited by David and Helen Constantine. MPT, one of very few journals specializing in the translation of poetry, has recently been awarded National Portfolio status by Arts Council England.

Proven ability in the translation of poetry and a good knowledge of poetry are essential. You need to have an informed appreciation of MPT’s work, and plenty of ideas for its development. Other essential qualifications are an excellent command of the English language, self-motivation, and the ability to deal with a great variety of people and to make and maintain good contacts in the arts world. You need strong ideas for the future of MPT, and a clear sense of how they may be carried through.

You will also need to have relevant experience in publishing, editing, proofing and copy-editing. You will work in collaboration with the Managing Editor, who is responsible for overseeing all financial and administrative matters. Editor and Managing Editor work together to ensure the bi-annual publication of MPT and of occasional pamphlets, and to hold ‘live literature’ events for their promotion. Both are answerable to the Board of Trustees, which meets quarterly.

The Editor will be self-employed and paid £13,500 per annum. The post is part-time, and could be job-shared, so joint applications for it are also acceptable.

Closing date: 25th March 2012. Interviews: Tuesday 24th April 2012, London.

Visit www.mptmagazine.com/page/jobs for more information on the job, and to download the application form. Please email the application form to administrator@mptmagazine.com by midnight on 25th March 2012. Applicants shortlisted for interview will be contacted by 16th April 2012. Please assume you have not been successful if you do not hear from us by that date.

Modern Poetry in Translation

The Queen's College

Oxford

OX1 4AW

cat nav - guest blog by jos carlyle

2012-02-01T17:34:00.001Z

Like many lovers of the written word, I became curious about thepossibilities of touchscreen devices such as the iPhone and the iPad as theywere launched in 2007 and 2010.

It quickly became clear that the interactive features of these deviceswould change how readers experience literature in profound and far-reachingways. The iPad in particular would allow storytellers to meld narrative, music,song and fine art into something that would simply revolutionise the readingexperience.

We incorporatedPersian Cat Press as a publishing company in October 2010, aiming to create thekind of beautiful, immersive and absorbing stories that can only be fullyrealised with the help of touchscreen devices. We call them iStories.

We hit the groundrunning, simultaneously working on five app projects in our first year ofoperation:

The Gift, a gentlyallegorical picture book for children aged four and older.

A bright and busypicture book entitled Owls Don’t Growl that supports a number of developmentmodels for pre-school children.

Solarized, asmart, high-energy adult graphic novel set in a sunny, dystopian Manchester,told in 12 installments over three years.

The Tale of Brin& Bent and Minno Marylebone, The Ballet, a powerful and thought-provokinginteractive multi-media expansion of a Jonathan Cape graphic (published insummer 2012).

And the stylish,informative and free-to-download Cat-Nav discovery app.

It was a punishingschedule at times, especially given the wildly differing subject matter andstyle of each project, but we felt we had a unique opportunity to make a bigimpression. There was no time to waste.

I've beenwriting picture books and graphic novels for years, and with these kinds ofnarratives you have to decide which elements of the story will be told via thetext, which will be told via the artwork - and how the two combine.

This was anextremely useful insight when I began to write interactively. It was a naturalprogression to further separate the narrative into interactions, movements andsound too.

We wanted The Giftto have a heartwarming narrative told with lyrical language. We wanted it tolook beautiful too – and we wanted to use the iPad and iPhone’s capabilities toreinforce these attributes.

Dan Mynard’sartwork, for example, was rendered in a series of oil on canvas pieces, but itremains wonderfully warm and vivid because it’s displayed on thehigh-resolution screens of the iPad and iPhone.

The similarlyhandcrafted soundtrack put together by CMI Music Group provides a uniqueemotional counterpoint for the narrative of The Gift, allowing us to quickenand slow the pace as needed.

It took a lot oftime and energy to successfully plan and coordinate the teams and individualswho worked on the original artwork, soundtrack, typography and narrationfor The Gift, as well as production of the app itself.

When you'recommissioning this kind of high-level work, you can't always wait until everyelement is complete before you begin to build the framework into which they’regoing to be placed. But delivering the various elements piecemeal can make ithard to stay true to the original vision.

We thought wehad a pretty good idea of all the stages there would be in producing ahigh-level app like The Gift – but we underestimated. We got where we wanted toget to, but it took a little longer than anticipated.

Quality controltook up an enormous amount of time. When you're producing a picture bookapp for children of this age group (4+), getting the details exactly right iscrucial. Parents expect the very best – and we aim not to disappoint.

We have aculture of honesty and openness at Persian Cat Press, and we’re happy to shareour insights and experiences with other companies.

This is in starkcontrast to what often seems like a very insular traditional publishingindustry – which is a little puzzling because from our perspective it appearsthat the publishing industry has as much to learn about book apps as anyone.

Our openapproach has more in common with the kind of culture found in moretechnologically focused concerns, such as game developers. Information sharingis what keeps this culture at the forefront of change, and it makes sense to usto follow that example.

Many of usinvolved in narrative apps seem to be running into the same kind ofdifficulties in terms of pricing, visibility and so on, but very few peopleseem to be talking to each other. Isn’t the evolution of a mature, value-ledbook app market in everyone’s interest?

Maybe the bigfish feel they have nothing to learn from start-ups like Persian Cat Press. Wewould disagree with them.

UK publishersand developers like Nosy Crow, Us Two, Tabella, Argant, and yes, Persian CatPress have a lot to teach many of the big publishing houses – maybe even suchleading digital lights as Faber and Faber, Random House and Harper Collins. Wecertainly know how much we can learn from them.

Happily, TheGift is now in the App Store and selling well. We’ve been delighted at thewarmth of the response to our work.

As a result ofmaking The Gift we've worked hard to refine the production process for oursecond picture book Owls Don't Growl, which will be published this summer. Sofar it’s working like clockwork.

No matter howsmoothly a project may run, though, there is always more to learn. That’s finewith us. We love what we do, and we learn fast.

You can findmore information on Persian Cat Press here [http://www.persiancatpress.com]

You can downloadThe Gift here [http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/the-gift-for-ipad/id493340328?mt=8].

brigade des images

2012-01-10T10:04:00.001Z

Laurent & Julie at London showing of Brigade des Images 2011

http://www.brigadedesimages.com/

BRIGADE DES IMAGES - Call for submission, short films / Appel à candidatures, films courts

Brigade des Images 2012

La Brigade des Images is calling for artists' videos and short films.
The films we are looking for are to be dealing with the suburbs: the way of life, the people, their hopes and despairs and the landscape of the suburbs.
Often a standard way of living can be found in the centre of major cities, a way of living that has to be reinvented in the surrounding suburbs.
The inhabitants of Romainville, Seine Saint Denis, will be taking part in the final selection of films for this new edition of Brigade of Images.
This selected films are to be shown in France and abroad beginning in May 2012 (Brooklyn, London, Tel Aviv, Budapest, Paris, Romainville).
An exhibition is planned for September.

You can find the screening locations in the broadcasting section.

The deadline for application is the 10th of March 2012.
Only DVD-R are accepted with a maximum length of 10 minutes.

Please send your films along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:
Brigade des Images
4, avenue Boutroux, 75013 Paris, France

ifsofloing 2012 - literature organisations, independent publishers and the digital world

2012-01-06T16:10:00.000Z

notes in the window of Collected Works poetry bookshop, Melbourne.

Lisa Gee, author, journalist – see http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/digital-literature-coming-to-a-small-screen-near-you-6278597.html?origin=internalSearch – and online content-maker, will be working regularly with if:book UK in 2012.

In the run up to Christmas 2011, Lisa spoke to representatives of twenty literature organisations and small publishers across England, asking them about …

1. one digital literature initiative, product or service that they're pleased with or has made a positive impact on their work, or on the people who interact with them/their organisaion.

2. one issue or challenge their organisation faces related to digital technologies and literature.

Where organisations had tackled technology head on, they found it made a massive difference, both in terms of what they could do, and what they felt capable of doing.

Snowbooks’ Emma Barnes talked about Bibliocloud: the system she’s built that offers publishers “well-managed bibliographic data, accurate and easy-to-process royalties and rights, title-level P&Ls, plus an instantly-updatable customer-facing website.” For Emma, these “make for a modern publishing business that's efficient and profitable”.

Colin Brown of Poetry Can described how “we used to be in thrall to the people who designed our website. So we've rebuilt our own site so we have total control over it, we can change anything to do with it. We started from scratch & learned as we went along. Getting our heads round digital platforms has made everything else more possible.”

The Reading Agency’s Reading Groups for Everyone, which boasts a membership of just under 2,500 groups – a potential audience of around 25,000 – has, in Ruth Harrison’s words, “had a major impact on our profile, increased awareness of and participation in the work we do with publishers. It’s enabled us to showcase what we do.”

Several independent publishers mentioned that the digital change that’s made the most difference to them was the introduction of digital printing, which has made smaller print runs more economic. E-books, on the other hand, are still something of a struggle, even for the technologically savvy. Emma Barnes again: “eBook creation still feels like a new technology that no one's really cracked. I think it's because the majority of publishers outsource their ebook production to someone else - often a someone else who's happy to throw cheap labour, rather than clever technology, at the problem. It means there's not much of a market for easy-to-use, robust eBook creation and conversion tools”.

And Ross Bradshaw of Five Leaves Press: “we have started producing eBooks. The three produced so far (all backlist) haven't sold well. We've got about another ten going up on kindle and other platforms by the end of the year, so we'll see. I'm wondering if it'll be a waste of time!”

A number of interviewees mentioned skills development – specifically the need to get to grips with the technology – as a major challenge. Henderson Mullin of Writing East Midlands said “The biggest challenge is resources, skills and knowledge. It's such a fast-changing environment it's had for a literature development organisaion to keep abreast.” An informed understanding of the various open source web platforms like Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal and eBook formats, together with a basic grasp of coding would prove immensely useful. And, as Charles Beckett of Arts Council England said, individual writers benefit hugely from: “Understanding what it [digital technology] can do, who it’s for and where it fits in.”

Other major challenges are the perennial bums-on-seats and funding issues. For Chris Gribble at the Writers’ Centre Norwich, “it’s about finding effective ways of engaging audience with online activity. It's looking at how to augment events and programme digitally in a way that has integrity. Jonathan Davidson of Writing West Midlands asks “how do you monetize activity that ends up being experienced on digital platforms? The filters for traditional analogue experiences – books and events – allowed for capital transfer. How do you take that online?” Ruth Harrison echoes his theme: “How do you pay to keep the work going? There are lots of areas we haven't got into yet: like crowd funding…”

if:book uk is planning a series of ifsoflo events around the country to help literature organisations continue to explore digital possibilities for literature.
Contact us if you're interested.

stories to touch

2012-01-02T20:07:00.001Z

Let's start 2012 with two of the wonderful films made by Sasha Hoare for our research work with Winged Chariot, working in London primary schools. More to follow.

2011-12-20T15:16:00.002Z

organising the word

2011-12-20T15:15:00.001Z

cori stewart and writers of Bundaberg, Queensland

I had a wonderful and fascinating time in Australia. These are the rest of my blogposts for Arts Queensland.

The second meeting I chaired at the State Library was for literature and cultural organisations.

Back in the UK I’ve talked to lots of literature organizations about their unique position in the bookscape, urging them to seize the full potential of this moment of radical change, but not feeling too convinced they will.

My gut instinct is that Queensland really is capable of leading the way into this brave new world.

This is a huge State, home to a good number of writers of quality working across a range of genres including poetry, children’s books, literary, speculative, romance and crime writing, graphic novels, poetry on the page and in performance, Indigenous Australian storytelling and memoir. Where other cities may have a stronger literary infrastructure and heritage, Brisbane has ambitious strategies for cultural development and the will to stimulate writing that reaches out to real readers in Queensland, the nation and the world.

The economic dominance of the USA is waning and sadly the UK appears to be sliding into oblivion. Australia is primed to play a major role in the new world arising. Like I said, this is a moment to shake off our habits and look at the best way now to do what we really think matters, but old habits die hard and change is never easy.

Futureproofing the book involves providing tools for the multiplicity of publishing options made possible by the web, from multimedia apps to print on demand production. Mentoring is needed to help individuals find the skills, advisors and collaborators that they need to pick the best route to readers and income for them. Pitching sessions help train writers to present ideas to publishers, games makers, film producers. Crowd funding sites allow writers to present planned books and ask for donations and/or collaborators to work with on realizing them.

A big idea emerged: for a geo location project so that wherever you go in Queensland you can pick up stories from the cloud chosen to be read in your specific location. And we discussed how knowing that funding might be available for translation would be a real spur to writers and publishers to broaden their horizons and make work with more overseas readers in mind.

Measuring the word

My third meeting was with members of the State of Writing group to discuss in particular how we can best evaluate and quantify activities across the sector.

I don’t want to be gloomy but the UK’s descent into austerity is worth reflecting on. With a change of government, overnight those winning arguments for the arts were cast aside. Anything not deemed utterly essential is being cut, along with the agencies that exist to argue their importance. Why fund organizations that tell you how criminal it is to cut other funds? Axe them first and nip protest in the bud seems to be the policy.

As the pundits talk about the UK entering a ‘lost decade’ of stagnation and dwindling global influence, the importance of strategies like this one is proved ever more important. Cultural capital doesn’t rely on bankers and bonds; the value of the Beatles and Shakespeare endure. And the viral spread of cultural phenomena reminds us that global success is never more than a click away.

When I ran Booktrust, with a portfolio of very different projects from literary prizes to the Bookstart books for babies scheme, we talked about whether the aim of our work was to make more booktime – could we measure all our activities in terms of the amount and depth of time for reading that we generated in people’s lives?

A children’s literature centre could be a good thing for Queensland, but what would convince someone who didn’t give a damn about books for kids that this could be an economical engine for improving literacy, generating social harmony, attracting a few more tourists and perhaps even some votes?

At the meeting we explored the pros and cons of economic and social arguments for the arts, the relative merits of performance indicators, statistics, academic research and anecdotal evidence to create a winning case. All agreed on the need for a coherent narrative across the sector.

I picture a structure of tubes, taps and reservoirs which we could stand over, tinkering with faucets and flows to ensure that as literacy levels increase, the pool of creative readers fills and this in turn leads to booksales rising. If the flow of cash is reduced, how can least damage be done to the whole waterworks?

In hard times we can use cheap, digital means to create resilient networks making life on a shoestring worth living. When more resources on the table we know how to lobby for them – and how best to divide the spoils.

Romancing Bundaberg

Date: 20 December 2011 Topic: Evaluation And Public Value

Chris Meade, founder of if:books UK, meets with writers in Bundaberg…

An energetic group of writers gathered at Bundaberg library for coffee, cake and heated debate. The group, many of whom are successful authors of genre fiction, took some convincing that the State really was prepared to promote and reward romance, crime and speculative fiction as well as the literary. They also showed ample evidence of the economic potential of these forms.

This group loved the idea of the geo-located stories project but suggested the addition of a ‘buy’ button, so having heard a sample, users could download the whole book – at a price. This kind of story map would also be a wonderfully unifying scheme. Here you could find Indigenous storytellers, all kinds of published poetry, literary and genre fiction, self published and ‘amateur’ writing from emerging authors, even contributions from schoolchildren.

A fear of being overlooked out here in the regions was tempered with respect for the outreach work of Queensland Writers Centre (QWC) and excitement about social media as a means to connect across country. A lot of time is spent blogging, tweeting but these were also new writerish skills that opened up new income streams as trainers and community managers.

Before setting off for Bundaberg I had looked in on Avid Reader, the West End bookshop which has frequently featured in these meetings as a vital hub for local writers – some of whom it employs – and the centre of a big community of readers. I loved the shop, its performance space, café, burgeoning stock of books and even some rather classy Kindle and iPad covers on the counter. Having watched the decline in UK highstreet bookselling, I fear for the future of their shop – but these strategic meetings make it crystal clear that the book love, knowledge and network which Avid embodies is the life blood of any strategy; let it pump through the networked veins of all Queensland.

Meanwhile in Brisbane and Bundaberg, festivals for writers and readers were praised as one enduring means to stimulate whatever bookiness the future holds, be it borrowing, buying, downloading, writing, publishing, producing, reading, sharing, dreaming…

2011-12-12T10:13:00.002Z

THE HOUSE OF STORIES

A COLLABORATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP

LEADING TO THE PRODUCTION OF A NEW KIND of

if:book

WITH

ROMESH GUNESEKERA & CHRIS MEADE

AWARD WINNING NOVELIST DIGITAL WRITER

SUNDAYS 19^th Feb and 4^thMarch 2012: 11.00-16.00

IF:BOOK CAFÉ IN HORNSEY LIBRARY, N8

The Library will be the setting for a group ofinterwoven stories involving famous characters from other books, famouswriters, librarians, readers, users of the library. DAY ONE will includewriting exercises to generate ideas; a visit to the book stack to choose a bookto inspire you; working alone and with others on stories and characters

TWO WEEKS to work on your stories with other membersonline

DAY TWO pulling stories together, editing andenhancing; designing the digital and print elements,

LIMITED PLACES AVAILABLE. Open to all, but when you book please send an example ofyour writing (no more than 1,000 words) and a letter about your interest incollaboration and digital production.

THE WORKSHOP is for writers at all levels ofexperience and we also welcome those with related skills such as song writing,art, video, web design etc.

ROMESHGUNESEKERA is the author of Reef, (shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize), TheSandglass, (winner of the inaugural BBC Asia Award), Heaven’s Edge, Monkfish Moon, (both New YorkTimes Notable Books of the Year) and The Match, published in 2006. He has run highlyacclaimed writing workshops around the world.

Granta Books relaunched his first three books in September 2011 andBloomsbury will be publishing his new novel, ThePrisoner of Paradise, in February 2012.

CHRIS MEADE is the Director of if:book the think and do tankexploring the future of the book in the digital age, an author of plays,comedy, blogs and digital literature including www.insearchoflosttim.net , and waspreviously CEO of Booktrust and the Poetry Society.

HOW MUCH?

Participant fees: £95 for both workshops, or £60 a session.

payable in advance.

TO BOOK GO TO http://houseofstories.eventbrite.com/

one to watch at if:book australia

2011-12-12T01:28:00.001Z

It's been fantastic catching up with Kate Eltham and Simon Groth of if:book Australia and the Queensland Writers' Centre. They have ambitious plans and it's not surprising to see Kate listed in this Christmas list of names to watch in Australian culture over the next year:

Here's what Arts Hub has to say:

The coming year will be a big one in the arts. We start afresh with new seasons from all the major theatre companies, we’ll see festivals soar and some crash, and we’ll see Australians make names from themselves both locally and internationally. Here, we have broken down the top 10 faces to keep an eye on in 2012.

1. Kate Eltham, Queensland Writers Centre CEO
Kate Eltham is the Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Writers Centre and has a passion for the new opportunities presented by the digital age through the if:book Australia centre, which focuses specifically on excellence in digital literature. Kate’s professional interest in the future of publishing, e-books and mobile content as well as digital publishing opportunities make her and the QWC ones to watch in 2012.

writing in queensland

2011-11-30T15:01:00.001Z

I'm off to Australia tomorrow - which is nice - and, before speaking at a conference in Melbourne, I'll be working in Brisbane, at consultation meetings with writers, creatives, publishers and all sorts of wordpeople to help in the creation of a Writers Strategy for Queensland. I feel very fortunate to be involved in this, and looking forward to being back in a part of the world with more optimism about literature development and creative industries.

Here's my first post for the Arts Queensland blog. I'll post others here too and welcome any comments from the UK and elsewhere too.

Date: 14 November 2011 Topic: Evaluation And Public Value

Over the next couple of months, AQ with Chris Meade, Founder of if:books UK, followed by Queensland poet Graham Nunn, will be consulting with the Queensland writing sector about its future direction. Chris Meade sets the stage in this blog.

My son moved to Sweden last year. Until recently all I knew of Sweden was Ikea and snow. But then I bought that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book, travelled there through fiction and now I’ve inhabited the streets of Stockholm, pictured its scenery, tasted its coffee.

Last year I also met (this time for real) the team from Pub:lit, a dynamic print on demand company based in Stockholm. They described how the success of the Millennium books has enlivened literary culture and built confidence that Scandinavian fiction can reach out to a wider world. Of course Swedes must also feel as bored of Millennium fever as the Brits are of Potter mania. No doubt arguments rage about which writers are better and what’s wrong with the author’s worldview; promoters will balk at the bleak and violent portrait Larsson paints of his nation… but Sweden is on the map in a whole new way, and the infrastructure of writing, publishing and literature promotion has been rejuvenated.

No strategy can create great writing, but it can provide a fertile setting from which exciting writing might emerge, it can seek out and promote talent that may currently be undervalued and overlooked; and it can use what’s there to encourage a reading culture in schools and across the community. Most importantly in 2011 it can help literary culture not just adapt to digital culture but seize on its creative and commercial potential now that we’re all Amplified Authors, able to use our laptops and mobiles to broadcast our words to the world.

When I visited Queensland last year I visited the brand new library at Cooroy on the Sunshine Coast. It brought home that no longer do we need an office in a capital city to be at the cultural heart of things. I see no reason why Queensland shouldn’t build a global reputation as a centre for a new model of publishing and writer development, attracting income from the entire English speaking world, fostering work that builds on what’s unique about where you live – from its ancient storytelling traditions to new digital infrastructure.

Not long ago communications between Australia and the UK involved airmail letters or quick calls down fuzzy and expensive phone lines. Recently I spent an hour talking about the consultation with Cori Stewart during a relaxed hour-long video conference held for free on Skype. I’m looking forward to being in Queensland for real, but welcome your thoughts via this blog anytime, or by email at chris@futureofthebook.org.uk.

Chris Meade

A beginning, a middle, but no end in sight

2011-11-30T14:34:00.001Z

“A book is bounded. It has a beginning and an ending and a discoverable way of knowing that you’ve read the whole thing.” Theo Gray is the author of The Elements, the elegant iPad book app that launched simultaneously with Apple’s device and founder and creative director of digital book publisher Touch Press. He’s offering his definition of a book and explaining the differences between books and websites. A major one for Gray – a mathematically-inclined visionary who speaks in flowcharts – is that you finish a book. Websites, like space, can go on forever...."

TO READ the rest of Lisa Gee's article from the Independent on Sunday - and see her video featuring if:book and many others, CLICK HERE

Oh and the winner is....www.lossofgrasp.com
Read more about the judging process on The Literary Platform

story cloud

2011-11-28T16:38:00.001Z

if:book is working on the Discover Centre's project for the Cultural Olympiade with Winged Chariot!
Imagine the humiliation of entering the new year with nothing Olympic in the forward plan!
We ran a workshop for children and parents exploring stories on line as part of the bid and will be involved in planning writing activities around the stories in the cloud. Here's more details:

STORYCLOUD

21 Jun 2012 - 9 Sep 2012

A unique digital project bringing together authors, illustrators and children to create stories.StoryCloud will reach 500,000 children in their homes, schools and libraries through digital storytelling. Across the UK children will write stories in response to specially commissioned tales and illustrations created by leading children’s authors and illustrators.Twelve brand-new stories have been commissioned for the project: six from leading children’s authors and poets, and six from east London children. Twelve outstanding illustrators will create interactive digital pictures that children can explore.

The children’s stories will reflect the diversity of their communities. For example, an Albanian folk tale or Bengali story that has been handed down through generations. Each week a new story will be released, one a week for the 12 weeks of London 2012 Festival.

Each story will have a challenge or provocation to motivate children to create their own response through writing and drawing. Children will be invited to send their stories to Discover and each week a selection will be displayed on an online gallery.

Children will be able to browse through a carousel of stories, tap and click to select one, then read, listen or play with the story. Children will also be able to add or work on new stories with writers and illustrators.

does the fate of bookshops rest on the fate of books?

2011-11-26T18:16:00.000Z

GUEST POST BY DR CAROLINE HAMILTON

Recently, I went to Berwick St in Soho with a DJ friend of mine who wasin London for a few days. Once hailed as having the greatest concentration ofrecord shops in Britain – back in the 1990s Berwick St had more than 20independent stores – the strip was even celebrated on the cover of an album byOasis. But, when I visited a few months ago, the scene was a far cryfrom those ‘glory’ days.

A scant few audiophiles sifted throughoverflowing racks of secondhand records and CDs. Signs advertised albums for10p. I politely flicked through bent cardboard and cracked plastic,feigning interest while my friend searched for any loot he might strip from thewreckage. It took me only a few minutes to abandon any interest.

I was struck by how relatively quickly theconcept of “browsing” had moved from shelf to screen. Through no fault of itsown, this record store had become a room full of junk. While I waited formy friend I asked the assistant for his predictions on the future. “It won't belong before all these places around here will be replaced by a string of coffeeshops."

This struck a particular chord with mebecause only a few days earlier the research partner I have been working withhere in the UK, if:Book, announcedits plans to transform a project we’d been working on together, an experimentalcommunity based bookshop, into – you guessed it – a coffee shop.

Well, not just a coffee shop, but anexperiment in finding new ways to attract people to visit spaces where, for amodest expenditure they can enjoy a variety of reading experiences. In thiscase it happens to be a rather unpretentious café above the local library. Herethere’s lots of light, some large tables to work or read and wifi. There’s alsoa wall of books for sale (a mix of big name and local self published products),and community noticeboards which advertise, amongst other things, courses indigital literacy, book making and creative writing. So, it’s not just a coffeeshop but a literary social space.

If Berwick St left me wondering: arebookshops – spaces easily as beloved by their public as record stores once were– eventually to suffer a similar fate? The ifBook experiment ‘cafe/bookshop inthe library’ made me speculate on whether this might be a possible solution.

In his book Last Shop Standing: WhateverHappened to Record Shops? Graham Jones attributes the closure of independentstores to the new market landscape in which record companies put onlineretailers and supermarkets ahead of independent outfits. But corporate greedand agglomeration are only one side of the story: customers have turned awayfrom traditional shopping experiences in favour of online services. Even thelocal videorental store has now vanished from our streets because of these changes inconsumer behavior.

When we talk about the current challengesfacing bookshops, there is implicit in this a concern that what such strugglesreally demonstrate is that books are becoming less relevant in our everydaylives. But is this necessarily the reality?

Research I’ve been working on rather gamelyclaims to consider what might happen in ‘the bookshop of the future’ and manyof these blog musing draw upon the qualitative research I’ve conducted over thepast 6 months with seven small, independent London-based book retailers andtheir customers. Based on what I’ve learned through these conversations andobservations I want to propose that, contrary to logic, a bookshop, evenwithout (many) books on the shelves really can be more than ‘justa room’? to its customers.

The idea that bookshops have importantsymbolic value as well as a commercial role is evident in any analysis ofpopular media. In books and films the bookshop also regularly features as sitefor charming and whimsical personal encounters (think of 84 Charing Cross Rd,or films such as You’ve Got Mail or Notting Hill). Bookshops are rather likeholidays, not only because they are associated with relaxation and escape butbecause, as with taking a holiday, what we value most of all about them are theaffective associations they engender. Bookshops are spaces for their patrons’fantasies about their preferred engagements with their preferred kinds ofliterature. They evoke feelings. This being the case the idea of the bookshopis arguably more valued than the actual store on any particular street corner.

This popular discourse contributes toconsumer opinion on the value of bricks and mortar book stores. And so, even assales of iPads and Kindles grow every year, and more customers turn to onlineshopping, bookshops are as beloved (if less patronized) as ever. In LauraMiller’s studyof American independent bookshops she reflects on the cultural value thatattends the work of the bookseller, suggesting that “in the valorization of thework of the bookseller there is a clear sense that books are exceptionallymoral objects deserving of protection from [destructive] forces.”

This is why the loss of our bookshops isgreeted with even more concern and scandalized outrage than the disappearanceof retailers such as record stores or other high street retailers becauseaccess to books is understood to contribute so much to a healthy society.

Miller observes that independent storeshave worked hard to harness the sense of community and being ‘in touch’ thatcustomers anticipate, using this to set them apart from their conglomeratecompetition. These activities allow small, local stores to account for theirundiscounted prices, and also give customers that much desired sense of being‘in touch’.

But, however nice it is to have a ‘sense ofcommunity’ this doesn’t address the realities of our daily habits. I have nodoubt that you and I both support the notion of community, we both value thedemocracy engendered by literacy, we both want local small businesses and localartists to succeed. We both like nice coffee. We both also buy books online. Imyself admit that I do almost all of my book purchasing online — partly theseare ebooks for the ease of travel and research, but also because printed bookscost a lot of money. Customers I spoke to expressed similar sentiments. Theyenjoyed browsing but often returned home to buy a book online at a discount. Or download it.

There is unquestionable convenience to theonline system, but also, some new pleasures. Customers I spoke with told me ofthe value of the internet as a research tool for reading, of the pleasure andpositive feeling of finding out about books via online networks. Here’s atypical comment: “I confess I get most of my recommendations for reading thesedays via things my friends post online; on Facebook, or Twitter, whatever.Maybe it’s a link to a book review of something new and I think, oh yeah, that looksinteresting…Before I know it, it’s on its way to my house.”

It’s not just that interesting thingsaren’t happening inside small bookshops, but these days much of it isn’ttraditional book buying and selling.

In the sites where I’ve been conducting fieldwork I’ve noticed some small but significant changes. The internet and digitalsocial networks are being used not just to link people with common allegianceswho are geographically distant but also proximate. Several of the stores I workwith understand that the majority of their online network is locally based andtailor their digital identity to reflect this. So for instance, one store Ivisited maintained a popular Twitter identity that kept followers up to datewith day-to-day activities in store, from the boredom of the daily commute, tofrustrations ordering stock or indecision about lunchtime sandwich selections.Even if you’re not in-store it’s easy to keep up to date with the daily life ofthe bookshop. This store recognized that it wasn’t reading books or critique ofbooks that suited social networks, but being around them in a very quotidianway that was the key. This same store also manages a slate of after-hour eventsthat have almost nothing to do with books (quiz nights, sewing classes, music,comedy and most recently even an Avon evening). These cases illustrate how theold idea of community support and being ‘in touch’ can match with the immediacyand novelty of digital networks.

As definitions of “reading” and “readers”have expanded with digital communications its very like that the bookstore’sideal customer might not even be someone who would describe themselves ashaving that traditional “passion for books.” Yet, they find their social andcultural tastes and allegiances well catered to by the store and its widernetwork. These are the book store’s new potential customers.

Bookstores need to take greater account ofthis change, emphasizing their role as social spaces for people, rather thanstore houses for stock. The bookstore’s continued ability to generateaffection, even among those of us whose actions end up undermining it, perhapsspeaks less to our love of books and reading and more to our desire to feel ‘intouch’ with our local environment, via the symbolic value books and bookshopsrepresent. Bookshops need to give people ways to connect online and reasons toleave the house that don’t rely solely on the sale of their primary product. Tosurvive, bookshops need to do something many record stores did not, that is,reinvent themselves as physical destinations within a broader network forreading, rather than being only in the business of book selling.

Dr Caroline Hamilton has been visiting the UK for 6 months as part ofan Endeavour Fellowship investigating how digital culture is affecting the workof bricks-and-mortar bookshops. You can read more about her work at:www.printedmattersproject.blogspot.com

stuff & things

2011-11-22T08:52:00.001Z

NO READING ALONE 4

OXFORD: The Hub

FRI 2ND DEC, 2011 7.30pm

Music, poetry, science, literature, comedy and technology are all on the agenda as 'No Reading Alone' moves to Oxford's city centre for another night of fantastically talented people sharing their passions and knowledge for your entertainment.

£5 tickets: all proceeds will be going to Schools Plus and Book Trust. Bookish charities for the most bookish of events.

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/143907

Granta magazine is launching an animated graphic novel inspired by Roberto Bolaño's short story in Granta 117: Horror 'The Colonel's Son.' A girl gets bitten by a zombie; the boy he loves tries to save her; the father of the boy, in turn, tries to save him. Bloodshed spreads across the city, as one by one witnesses become victims . . . and then killers. Click here to start spreading the contagion.

dear readers...

2011-11-10T15:13:00.000Z

We are working on a relaunch of the IFSOFLO network which aims to provide inspiration and practical tips to writers,

literature organisations, teachers of English interested in exploring digital possibilities for literature.

We want to know:

What has been your best experience of digital means to make, teach or read literature?

(you're welcome to tell us about your own projects and activities)

AND

What are the biggest challenges you face currently in making best use of digital for literary purposes?

(Please include the apparently trivial as well as the major ones - they all matter!)

PLEASE answer these questions in not more than 200 words

You can send us a video of you answering them if you wish.

We'll post responses on our in-the-process-of-being-refurbished site.

AND THEN we'll seek to find the simplest and best possible ways to help you with the challenges you face.

One other question:

We are thinking of moving the community to the IFBOOK facebook page. Do you think that's a good idea?

All the best,

Chris and Lisa

Chris Meade, Lisa Gee

if:book UK

Visit The If:book Cafe & ifsoflo network at: http://ifsoflo.ning.com

if:book cafe update

2011-11-08T17:22:00.001Z

The Unlibrary space at Hornsey Library issoon to be used for other purposes and we’ve decided to rename the caféupstairs THE IF:BOOK CAFÉ, our future of the book place and a new kind of spacefor reading and writing. The Hornsey Unlibrary project, founded by Anke Holst and I with encouragement from Diana Edmunds, is ended, and now at IF:BOOK we’re working with Robin Stevenson, who runs the cateringside of the café as a sole trader, Big Green Books who supply our book stock, and the wonderful staff and users of Hornsey Library to build a lovely place to hang out and asustainable creative community of writers, readers, artists and all kinds ofdigital makers. We’ll be launching our first if:book reading experiences earlynext year.

Please excuse us as wereconfigure things on the site and in the space over the next few weeks.

Follow the Café on twitter at @ifbookcafe and join the If:bookcafe page on Facebook

I’m delighted to be working with Lisa Gee,author and ex-editor of the Orange Prize for Fiction website. Among other projects Lisa will be helping with our input to the Young Poets Network.

Meanwhile SashaHoare, filmmaker and associate with loads of experiences in literature andeducation work, will be helping us with our Stories To Touch project withWinged Chariot and London schools. Kati Rynne has moved on and we wish her all the best with her theatre career.

MEANWHILE in December Chris is off to Australia, not only to speak at the OWOVM.COM conference in Melbourne but also to run a series of consultation sessions as part of the creation of a Writing Strategy for Queensland. Thanks to if:book Australia for putting us in touch. This is a wonderful opportunity to participate in an important and forward looking initiative.

if:book is also delighted that we'll be working with the Discover Childrens' Story Centre and Winged Chariot on their Story Cloud project, as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad London Festival.

schopenhauer and the human condition

2011-11-08T13:43:00.000Z

Alongside our weekly meet up hour (11-12 on Tuesdays) and the Song Making workshop on Wednesdays, (11.30-12.45), we're launching a weekly learning circle at the if:book cafe in Hornsey Library, hosted by David Barry, suitable for anyone interested in the meaning of everything.

Contact David dot Barry at Mac dot com if you'd like to join,

The starting point is A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION TO SCHOPENHAUER by Christopher Janaway which will soon be for sale in the if:bookshop.

Participants will be expected to read set texts and contribute constructively to the discussion.

David Barry writes:

A learning circle, is a group of people who come together regularly to explore a topic. (see note) While the group is facilitated and conducted by a person with some expert knowledge of the area it is called a "circle" rather than a seminar or lecture. So everyone in the group is encouraged and expected to contribute. The Philosophy of Schopenhauer is especially suited to this treatment. This is because despite the scope of his ambitious work - he tries to explain EVERYTHING - and it being firmly situated in the tradition of Western Philosophy, his concerns focus on our experience of being human. His unremitting analysis of how we actually experience life (he contends), as being full of endless strife has earned him the reputation of being the great pessimist. But its not all a grim diagnosis. (Although he did go on a bit. It is no surprise to discover he influenced Beckett) As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out :-

"Schopenhauer in fact advocated ways — via artistic, moral and ascetic forms of awareness — to overcome a frustration-filled and fundamentally painful human condition. Since his death in 1860, his philosophy has had a special attraction for those who wonder about life's meaning, along with those engaged in music, literature, and the visual arts."

An extraordinarily well read man in a number of languagesSchopenhauer applies his insights across the whole range of the arts. (He concludes, incidentally, that music is the highest of the arts.) In effect, in one person, he combined expertise in a number of subjects. A learning circle is therefore a good way to study him, as such is the range of the application of his work, and its reliance on personal insights we gain through the mere process of being alive, that everyone can have something to contribute.

Format of the Group

The Group will meet every Thursday morning at 11 am, for an hour, in Hornsey Library. There will be a short introduction by the facilitator, and discussion will then commence around a topic. After the first couple of sessions the direction the group takes will depend on the interests of the members. For the first two sessions the topic will be introduction to Schopenhauer. There will be a reading list with three or four books on it. I have just learnt that a "Very Short Introduction" to Schopenhauer is now available and I will see if I can get a copy quickly, as that may turn out to be a really good basic text -I have seen others in that series - which one could reasonably expect everyone to obtain, and read. The other three texts are "The World as Will and Representation" (Vol 1) Arthur Schopenhauer, Kant's prolegomena in an e edition I have just found, and Bryan Magee's excellent book on Schopenhauer.

The Facilitator

David Barry has a degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, University of Dublin, where he first studied Schopenhauer. He has experience as a teacher of adults having taught Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck College, London, and Management for the Open Business School. He has never taught philosophy before so this will be an new experience. When he first encountered Schopenhauer he was fascinated by the philosopher's vision, ambition, and his metaphysics, and the way his thought threw light on the crucially important Kant. (Kant being both important and hugely obscure whereSchopenhauer is clear.) Some decades later, he has begun to suspect, that Schopenhauer in his discussion of the human condition was on to something.

2011-11-04T13:00:00.000Z

I'm delighted to have joined the board of trustees of Modern Poetry in Translation.

This event looks good:

Poetryin the House

10 November 2011

Time: 8-10pm

Tickets £5(£3 concessions)
At Lauderdale HouseHighgate Hill, Waterlow Park, London N6 5H
G Tel 020 8348 8716T

Modern Poetry in Translation
with
David Constantine, Helen Constantine,
PhilipGross, Christopher Pilling,
Saradha Soobrayen, Karen McCarthy Woolf

occupation library

2011-10-30T13:55:00.002Z

I took a walk around St Paul's yesterday and browsed in the pop up library there. The UnlibraryCafe sends solidarity!

books in browsers live stream

2011-10-27T16:57:00.000+01:00

Watch live streaming video from oreillyconfs at livestream.com

social bob

2011-10-22T10:20:00.001+01:00

Bob Stein on Social Book at TOC Frankfurt

poetry workshop saturday 2.00 (mis)guided tours

2011-10-20T08:50:00.000+01:00

We're holding a poetry workshop with the Young Poets Network online and at the Unlibrary Cafe THIS Saturday at 2.00 with poet Richard Tyrone Jones on writing (mis)Guided Tours like the one Richard does in Crouch End.
Any young writers who would like to join in, please email chris@futureofthebook dot org dot uk for instructions on logging in.
You need to be online with a laptop and webcam - and/or to be in the Cafe at Hornsey Library.

typing

2011-10-18T11:13:00.000+01:00

On holiday in Suffolk I bought for £20 an Olympia Splendid 66
portable typewriter and overwhelmed with memories from the days of carbon paper and tippex and more besides, wrote this on it.
We've started a song making workshop run by Carl Hodson at the Unlibrary Cafe on Wednesday lunchtimes and this was homework.

And did those feet that I once kissed
In lazy Sunday bath and bed
And danced beside in student haunts
And marched behind where protest led
Did they now, though worn and sorely
Marked with maps of calloused lands
One autumn afternoon and beach walk
Press fresh impressions in the sand:
Subtle footprints, moist as when
You barefoot, light and lithe,
A force of heat and liberation
First kicked love into my eyes?

2011-10-12T11:24:00.002+01:00

2011-10-06T17:02:00.001+01:00

national poetry day at the unlibrary cafe

2011-10-06T16:07:00.000+01:00

Here's what we did on National Poetry Day - Fang donated a ukulele to us, Annalouise Oakland drew him, Brian Docherty and members of Hornsey Library writers' groups wrote poems for our fridge and Robin made crumpets. Reasons to be cheerful.

the magic of reality - review

2011-10-04T13:45:00.001+01:00

The Magic of Reality iPad App

iPad app

Features: Unique visual navigation and intuitive gesture controls...

Production credits: Transworld Publishers by Somethin' Else

Launch date: 23 September 2011

Reviewed for the Literary Platform

The Magic of Reality by atheist almighty Richard Dawkins is an excellent concept beautifully executed: to present genuine scientific fact alongside the myths and legends which humans have created to help them explain the inexplicable before science found out more. So while it celebrates the narrative power of these ancient tales, Dawkins emphasizes that what actually happens is always more exciting and… well, true.

App and book mix illustrations by Dave McKean based on stories from many cultures with infographics explaining how rainbows work, what earthquakes are and even why bad things happen and where we came from. Personally I’d have like more images direct from the cultures he discusses, rather than re-rendered by McKean, but he covers an amazing range of styles and animated touches. Between each chapter is a little game to play, for instance involving firing a cannon out of the earth’s atmosphere. The game element seemed a bit daft to me, but the app version is very slick, with nice typographical tricks. As you swipe from page to page, sometimes the text moves and pictures remain, sometimes it’s the other way round. Animated touches are elegant and the app format is especially good at showing scale – push the slider and watch the earth shrink away into pinprick insignificance alongside the sun.

The Magic of Reality is aimed at older children and the general reader. As a book it’s the kind of tome I might have been bought for Christmas by a scientific uncle, would flick through sometimes and read odd bits of, but would seldom read from start to finish. That’s partly because of my shallowness, but also in part because of the difficulty of heaving a hefty hardback about or propping it up in bed. The iPad allows us to handle highly illuminated text as easily as a light novella. But once downloaded, time will tell how tempting it is to revisit Uncle Richard’s box of appified tricks for further exploration. With no connection to the web, no space for note taking or social reading, this is the book transferred to tablet, not transformed by it. There’s still something strangely old fashioned about these lavish, coffee table apps, Boys Own annuals for the digital age, as sleek and as enclosed as ponies in paddocks.

2011-10-03T10:25:00.000+01:00

NATIONAL POETRY DAY
at the UNLIBRARY CAFÉ
The Future of the Book Place
Upstairs @ Hornsey Library
THURSDAY OCT 6TH 11-00 till whenever
BRING A PLAYFUL POEM TO READ ALOUD * WRITING GAMES * DIGITAL POEMS * www.unlibrarycafe.com

the sound of one hand snipping

2011-10-03T09:37:00.000+01:00

Another beautiful piece of paper art recommended by Alain Pierrot, co-Director of if:lire, our french partners in bookfuturism. It's by Sachiko Abe and there's more about it here:http://www.littletimemachine.com/gallery/2010/09/cut_paper_by_sachiko_abe/

rewriting the future - digital publishing day

2011-10-02T23:08:00.000+01:00

EMMTEC, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, LN6 7TS

Date: Wednesday 26th October 2011

Time: 10:00am – 4:30pm

A powerful and provocative day of discovery, insight and debate looking at the future of writing and publishing and arming you with the pervasive opportunities and challenges that ‘digital’ provides in this ever-changing world.

Hosted in partnership with Writing East Midlands, the University of Lincoln and Threshold Studios, Rewriting the Future won’t ‘rewrite’ the book, but will broaden your horizons and challenge your perceptions of what it means to be a writer or a creative in the digital age.

On the day:
● learn about business models for the future and gain practical insight into how to diversify your creative talents
● discover more on how to make the web your friend
● understand what it means to exist as a writer in a trans-media and trans-literal world
● examine the impact of digital on the publishing and selling arenas
… and much more.

We have a packed line-up for the day including leading speakers ranging from Chris Meade, Director of if:book uk, to Sophie Rochester, founder of The Literary Platform to Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Places are strictly limited and demand for this event is high.

To register, please email with the subject "Rewriting" to edc@frequency.co.uk

A link will be sent imminently to take your booking in due course.

Fees: Full Rate - £40; Concessions - £25

This event is taking place during the Frequency festival, the inaugural digital culture festival. This day is not only a platform for fostering insight and discovery, but 2011 is the beginning of what we hope will be a biennial event for the county with an international presence.
We would also like to draw your attention to our EXPO on Friday 28th October, a day of talks and seminars including futureproofing and upskilling (full £30/concession £20).
For further information on the many exciting events taking please during Frequency, please visit our website: www.frequency.org.uk.

The line up.

We are delighted to bring to this event an exciting line-up of world-class speakers and specialists from the literary, digital and cultural worlds, including:

Chris Meade is Director of if:book uk, the think and do tank linked to the Institute for the Future of the Book in New York, if:book Australia and if:lire in Paris.
if:book makes digital reading experiences; undertakes research in schools; gives training courses and talks on digital publishing and the amplified author; runs the Unlibrary Cafe at Hornsey Library, an experiment in the future of the book place. Chris has an MA in Creative Writing & New Media and blogs at www.bookfutures.com. He was previously director of the Poetry Society and Booktrust. www.futureofthebook.org.uk

Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media at De Montfort University, Leicester
Sue is the author of several books, most recently the internet travelogue ‘Hello World: travels in virtuality’, and is currently writing a study of nature metaphors in cyberspace. She founded the trAce Online Writing Centre, an early online community for writers which ran from 1995-2005, and now co-directs the Transliteracy Research Group. She will offer insights into the ways new media has helped to change the way we think about writing and publishing. www.suethomas.net @suethomas

Sophie Rochester, Founder of The Literary Platform
Sophie worked for five years at 4th Estate and Jonathan Cape (Random House) before moving to the digital agency GT London in 2000. In 2002, she joined Colman Getty working for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Guardian Hay Festival. Since 2007 she has worked as an independent literary consultant and in 2010 founded The Literary Platform, a website dedicated to exploring new platforms for literature. www.theliteraryplatform.com

if:bookshop opens

2011-09-29T16:37:00.003+01:00

It's super thursday when all the most exciting book things are launched so here it is: our curated selection of new paperback books for sale at the Unlibrary Cafe, Hornsey, London, and a key element of the future of the book place we're building here.I mean, as people keep telling me, you can't beat the look, feel and smell of one of these. Any book in print can be ordered here, supplied by Big Green Bookshop of Wood Green. We also run digital publishing courses here and are hatching plans for transmedia reading experiences to come. Pop in and buy one (and a coffee) soon from Robin Stevenson, our 18th Century bookseller.More at www.unlibrarycafe.com and follow us on Twitter @unlibrarycafe

conviviality conversation and caroline

2011-09-29T12:19:00.001+01:00

On the day we launch the if:bookshop at the Unlibrary Cafe, here's a guest post from

Dr Caroline Hamilton written following the 3Cs event we ran with Caroline and Carolina Celon at the Free Word Centre.

The full text can be read here

"One very interesting strand of discussion at our recent workshop related to the change that digital culture has had on our ways of thinking about participation in culture.

To put it very simply, the internet has reshaped our expectations about who gets involved, where and how. At the workshop my attention was directed to a recent lecture given to the British Council by the journalist Ben Hammersley. You can read a transcript or watch a video here. Hammersley explains the way that the internet is shaping the thinking of younger people. It’s a change in thinking he typifies as the difference between a network and a hierarchy. I won’t go into detail explaining what Ben explains very well in his lecture – here I want to reflect on how we might think about how making books and selling them can fit into this new network model…

From my perspective this notion of hierarchies vs networks is very useful for understanding what has changed for readers (and consumers) of books. Once, bookstores were heirarchical places where many people didn’t dare to enter lest they be looked down their noses at by a stiff-looking shop owner who had organised the store (or not organised the store, as the case may be) to suit themselves. Book shopping for most of the 20^th century could be an alienating business. Many people just gave up. Would rather buy a book at a news agent or a train station or (later) a supermarket to avoid the discomfort of an antisocial exchange.

This is not so today in a culture increasingly organised according to the network model. Networks not only encourage but necessitate participation from a diverse population. You can’t actually engage with Facebook, for instance, unless you understand that you need to be connected to others. The experience of buying a book today is nothing but networked. Of course, there’s the obvious stuff – buying books online via Amazon and Book Depository… These are networks for books, certainly. But a networked bookstore doesn’t mean an online store. Many online stores are not very well networked at all, or at least, networked in only the most simple ways. Arguably there are much more interesting examples of how books are used, bought, sold and made according to the network experience....

Of course, as the internet proliferated across the world and online retail became legitimate and popular the consumer value system changed. Consumers reassessed their motivations for entering a bookstore. Many books were easier and cheaper to obtain online. Both the network and the value system underpinning it changed. The social and ambient aspects that made the big chain bookstores pleasant were being well satisfied in other locations (in real life and also online). The big bookstores lost the allegiance of their network of customers in deference to the economic hierarchies (and we can see now where that has got them). To quote Ben Hammersley, the glue that holds individuals together across the network is “interest, it’s belief, it’s cultural allegiance.  And those cultural allegiances can be anything from religion or hard-core politics down to the fact that you and I really like vampire novels and those lot don’t. Or we are Star Wars and they are Star Trek. […] We increasingly find that our allegiance – our social allegiances, our political allegiances – are to people who are likeminded but nowhere near us.”

This is certainly true, but I want to stress the point here that these networks are equally effective and important in creating allegiances closer to home. And indeed, more and more the internet and digital social networks are being used not just to link people with common allegiances who are geographically distant but also proximate. In the small bookshops where I’ve been conducting field work I’ve noticed this happening in almost all cases. Using online networks, these stores involve customers in their community even while they’re not in the shop. This might just be via news updates on Facebook or Twitter, but it also involves more experimental forms of networking: managing events in the store after hours (not necessarily book launches, but quiz nights, sewing classes, music or comedy performances – stuff that has virtually nothing to do with books and how to flog them). The motivation here is to cater to the drives of the network that supports them. Today, a customer at a small independent bookstore needn’t necessarily even be someone who’d identify themselves as a great reader. Instead they find their social and cultural allegiances well catered to by the store and its wider network. Bookstores, it turns out, may not be about books at all…

The bookshop is an ideal place to explore networks because at heart they represent not a place to buy books but a place for engagement. In 1960 an American sociologist Edward Shills said of the bookshop, it is a “place for intellectual conviviality, and it has the same value as conversation, not as a “civilized art” but as a necessary part of the habitat of a lively intelligence in touch with the world.” Being in touch with the world now very often takes place via the internet but theres no reason for bookshops not to continue to involve themselves in the conviviality and conversation of these modern networks. Bookshops can be one place (in actual geographic place and also digitally) that nurture the social and cultural networks facilitated by life after the internet."

This is a further extract from the 3Cs discussion. The filming's rubbish (I did it), but the conversation was worth recording and I lost the audio.

patch slam poems 2

2011-09-26T11:42:00.001+01:00

Molly Pearson and Eleanor Watkins perform their poems, introduced by Hayden Anyasi.
Enjoy.

And finally...

"The air’s ablaze with voices,

Tower to tower, antennae to antennae

All babbling in concert with a Babel oftongues.

Each atom rings with signals,

Sound, light, noise, white heat;

This is a revolution in the works,

Fragile and dangerous on swarming lips.

A demand for us to dissolve

From what was solid

And fill the busy air. "

Work in progress by Alister MacQuarrie

written during the Alpha-ville Patch Slam.

Please spread the word about www.youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk and join us on Facebook

at http://www.facebook.com/YoungPoetsNetwork

young poets at alpha-ville

2011-09-25T15:36:00.000+01:00

I'm at the Alpha-ville festivalhttp://www.alpha-ville.co.uk/ this weekend with young poets who entered a challenge to write poems about the future on the www.youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk site which if:book has been working on for the Poetry Society, and the poets are now working with Hayden Anyasi and his team from vvvv.org on a Patch Slam, digitally illuminating their work live and performing it at the end of each day.Here's the first poem, by Alister MacQuarrie.

And here's an interview with poet and producer.

And this was filmed with Alister and fellow YPNer Molly Pearson when they first arrived.

It's been a fascinating weekend, wonderful to see young writers engaging with new ways to make and share work, and great to see how the digital makers respond to poetic sensibility. I enjoyed Joe's pleasure to find that Alister's poem was lyrical and not what he'd expected in this highly digital setting.

A theme of the festival is 'post digital', in other words it's time to think of laptops and apps as just as much part of our everyday lives as motorcars and telephones, they are tools to help us lead our lives, not bizarre arrivals from an alien land. And that's how I want more writers and readers to think too.

3C's at the Free Word

2011-09-23T12:49:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd recorded the whole of our 3Cs discussion at Free Word, but summat went wrong with it, so all I've got are snippets of video.Caroline and Carolina will be posting notes here soon of what was a fascinating, reflective conversation sparked off by Carolina's thoughtful questions.

stratospheric fifth dimension poetry

2011-09-21T10:39:00.003+01:00

I interviewed poet Michael Horovitz last week for the Young Poets Network project and in the final section he managed in a few minutes to move from a description of the end of Wholly Communion, the poetry happening he helped to organise at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965, to an attack on advertising and a blessing to the poets of the future, the Great Grandchildren of Albion, urging them to make stratospheric fifth dimension poetry together via digital means, "with music, with computer, with space travel, without knives, and without political or Arts Council approval". More to follow but here's Ginsberg and Horovitz together again.

if:lire launch photos

2011-09-21T09:07:00.001+01:00

Alain Pierrot, Samuel Petit of if:lire, Marseille, September 2011

marseille cafe

2011-09-20T19:48:00.002+01:00

if:lire is here

2011-09-20T19:16:00.001+01:00

if:lire, the Institute for the Future of Reading and Writing, Paris-based sister organisation to if:book uk and the rest of if:books united, was launched in Marseille last friday at the closing event of the Open Edition Summer University. I spoke at the conference on Monday and was lucky enough to be able to spend the week in this exciting city before meeting if:lire's founders, Alain Pierrot, a longstanding contributor of book art links to this blog, and Samuel Petit, publisher and digital innovator. It was a pleasure to meet them at last and see the latest if:thing launched on the world. Alain and Samuel are both fans of comics and graphic novels, so I hope Alain will forgive me for drawing him. if:book London wishes our new partners the very best.

Aperotweet and Egyptian bookhistory found in Marseille

the line

2011-09-20T19:16:00.000+01:00

Two classic videos recommended by Samuel.

riot acts

2011-09-15T10:47:00.001+01:00

RIOT ACTS: CALL FOR PROPOSALS from Penned In The Margins

Are you a performer, theatre maker, playwright, writer, poet or live artist?
Riot Acts is seeking proposals for new live/performance work in response to the August riots in London and across cities in England.
We will select three ideas to be presented as scratch performances on Saturday 19 Novemberat Rich Mix in East London.
This is not a showcase for finished pieces but a presentation of work that is as exciting as it is rough and ready. This is a great opportunity to develop or test out an idea in a supportive, critical setting and get a variety of responses to your work.
Fee: £100-150
Deadline for applications: Friday 14 October at 5pm
Full details and application form: http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2011/09/riot-acts-call-for-proposals/

brill biff

2011-09-06T17:58:00.000+01:00

Biff's wonderful cartoon about the launch of the Poetry Cafe, from the Guardian circa 1998,

can now be seen in the Unlibrary Cafe, our second literary coffee place.

NEW TERM AT IF:BOOK ACADEMY

2011-09-05T18:06:00.000+01:00

Well, I hope you all had a good summer on the beach reading your Kindles. Did you get sand in yours? Did you relish the lightness of your bag as you slipped through customs so unladen down by hefty tomes? It's all over now. Name tags and pencil sharpening and laptop recharging.

We're getting straight down to work with our CREATE CURATE CONSUME seminar on September 19th. Places are going fast, so book now if you'd like to come. http://createcurateconsume.eventbrite.com/

Oh but before that I'm off to Marseille from the 12th to 16th September to speak at the Centre for Open Electronic Publishing http://www.openedition.org/?lang=en which is holding its its Electronic publishing Summer sessions focused on the circulation of knowledge and the alliances between authors, publishers, librarians and readers around the digital book.

Early in November we'll be presenting the Young Poets Network with the Poetry Society at a major conference in London on poetry and schools.

Working with if:book associate Kati Rynne we're continuing our research work, funded by the Gulbenkian, looking at the use of Winged Chariot's apps and other digital materials in schools.

There are a couple of exciting proposals we're been involved with that have gone to that NESTA fund what everyone's gone for. We live in hope, and the certainty that we'll be furthering our plans for the Unlibrary Cafe and a new model for digital community publishing.

I'm giving a talk at Ljubljana Book Fair's 'Publishing Academia' conference on 23 and 24 November, and in December I'm going back to Melbourne to speak at the OWOVM Conference http://owovm.com/program/.

Hosted by Victoria University, the Oral, the Written and Other Verbal Media (OWOVM) Conference on Poetics and Discourse will be held in Melbourne, Australia from 12 to 14 December 2011.

With the theme of ‘Testimony, Witness, Authority: the politics and poetics of experience’, the conference brings together practitioners and researchers in a forum to explore the variety of ways experience is reproduced and cultures built through oral, written and other verbal media.

To be held at Victoria University’s city campus in Australia’s cultural capital, Melbourne, the 2011 conference will feature language, voice and text from scholars, composers and performers.

IN THE NEW YEAR if:book will be touring around the UK running IFSOFLO seminars and workshops on DIGITAL PUBLISHING.

And of course there will be other stuff too, so please keep in touch.

3Cs: Creating, Curating, Consuming - the social life of books Monday, September 19, FREE WORD CENTRE, LONDON

2011-09-02T14:29:00.001+01:00

How do the practical realities of selling books to customers relate to collaborative creative projects between authors and publishers?

Dr Caroline Hamilton from University of Melbourne is studying the future of bookselling and the key words curation and community. Carolina Ceron, MA student at Goldsmiths College, is looking at how experiments in curating books relate to the history of art curation. Both have been looking at the work of Chris Meade, Director of think and do tank if:book uk and founder of the Unlibrary Cafe, an experiment in building a local, digital culture for reading, writing and publishing. if:book recently curated a series of events at the Free Word Centre on HOW POWER CORRUPTS, a text by Dr Ricardo Blaug.

Caroline, Carolina and Chris will be talking about their work and proposing a series of questions for general debate:

Publish Post

How does

growing interest in collective creative work extend how we understand the definition of the book?

How important is the figure of the curator in modern digital culture and how can this be used to stimulate interest and involvement in books and publishing?

How can these ideas help to actually sell stuff to people?

Places for this roundtable discussion are very limited.

BOOK HERE -----> http://createcurateconsume.eventbrite.com/

admiring miro

2011-08-22T11:29:00.002+01:00

some drawings what I done at the Miro exhibition at Tate Modern

more marginalia

2011-08-17T12:20:00.000+01:00

Here's another film from Marginalia, our digital sampler for the Arvon Foundation's Jerwood mentored writers' scheme

There's more at http://www.futureofthebook.org.uk/arvon2/

pop up thoughts

2011-08-16T11:16:00.002+01:00

Robin Stevenson serves starters to Andrea Levy

Our chef Rewati Shahani stirs the crab

Diners dining

These are images from our pop up restaurant held recently at if:book towers, our first experiment with this kind of mix of words and food. As well as Shahani's delicious cuisine and Hattie's lettered dessert, we had readings from Cindy Oswin and Will the Poetry Waiter, art menus from artist in residence Ruth Franklin (and she really IS in residence as she's our lodger for a few weeks), poems and prose on tabletops, painted on bodies, hidden in glasses and on the floor etc. The feedback was good at the end of an enjoyable evening and the team were relaxing afterwards when word began to trickle through of trouble 'kicking off' nearby in Tottenham and Wood Green... Seems a long time ago already.

It was a strange experience charging visitors to our home for food, particularly as a proportion of guests were friends who we've fed for free on many occasions, but the quality of Rave's cooking and the professionalism of the waiting team did make it feel like something other than a dinner party.

I was keen to see how our domestic space could be adapted for these uses, but pop up culture does bring a mercantile element into places where it's usually happily absent. But in a society of freelancers pitching to work with contacts, money must change hands somehow or we're all losers.

The pop up covered its costs with a little over to pay to Rewati, but it certainly didn't make profit and made us all wonder how anyone with proper overheads manages to make a bean.

It also felt subtly divisive. Which friends could afford to come, which couldn't but wanted to be there? It was hard to ask. I'd much rather have an audience of strangers - but then it also proved hard to coax complete outsiders through the door. We had people in the US and Australia and Portugal eager to attend; others closer to home sounded interested but backed out at the last minute. Maybe next time.

I'd be interested to hear from others who have tried this kind of thing. It relates to the model we've been exploring here through the Unlibrary for creating a robust local network for literature in austere times.
If the public spaces close, the show can still go on.

Thanks to all who participated.

2011-07-21T18:02:00.001+01:00

I like this photo of the Unlibrary gang meeting for the weekly drop in, 11-12 on Tuesdays, which we're renaming THE HOUR in honour of the TV show filmed next door in Hornsey Town Hall.

unlibrary days - the first digital publishing course

2011-07-16T16:24:00.001+01:00

There's ONE MORE to come: http://digitalpublishingwriters.eventbrite.com/ Saturday July 30th

"The two exercises were good for getting my creative juices flowing again – it’s alarming to realise how they had begun to dry up with all the commercial work I’ve been doing recently. I was glad to have your notes to take away too." - Tia Alzulay

unlibrary update

2011-07-12T16:29:00.000+01:00

Edit

DIGITAL PUBLISHING FOR BEGINNERS - COURSE AT THE UNLIBRARY, HARINGEY

Saturday, July 16, 2011 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM(GMT)

ONLY £35 - TO BOOK A PLACE GO TO http://digitalpublishing.eventbrite.com/

DUE TO DEMAND WE'RE RUNNING THIS COURSE AGAIN ON

SATURDAY 30TH JULY from 10:00:AM to 01:00:PM AND

SATURDAY 13TH AUGUST from 10:00:AM to 01:00:PM

TO BOOK FOR THESE GO TO:

http://digitalpublishingwriters.eventbrite.com/

ed miliband seizes the time

2011-07-08T18:07:00.000+01:00

I drew this the day after a wonderful cartoon workshop by the brilliant Steve Bell.
I've just been waiting for Ed to do something important enough to justify using it.

book a table at if:book pop up restaurant sat 6th august

2011-07-08T17:08:00.003+01:00

SATURDAY 6th AUGUST 7.30pm
AT 127 RATHCOOLE GARDENS N8 9PH
to celebrate the launch of the Unlibrary Cafe, Crouch End

Delicious Food devised by Rewati Shehani and Team
Served in Style by the Poetry Waiters
with Music and The Gifts of Words
plus Portable Books and art for sale

£25 per head plus wine

PLACES VERY LIMITED - Book now to avoid disappointment by emailing
chris at futureofthebook dot org dot uk

Please let us know if you are vegetarian and/or have specific dietary requirements

marginalia one

2011-07-07T10:03:00.000+01:00

The second if:book digital sampler of work produced by mentees on the Arvon Jerwood mentorship scheme was launched at the Free Word in June. Texts illuminated by Toni Le Busque and Sasha Hoare who also interviewed each partipicant when we went to The Hurst to meet the writers and discuss with them how their work could be adapted for multimedia. I'm very pleased with the results and will post some of the films here over coming weeks. Here are pieces by Geraldine Clarkson and Ros Martin.

The whole can be seen at www.futureofthebook.org.uk/arvon2

getting stuff done

2011-07-02T11:08:00.000+01:00

Getting Stuff Done. from flight404 on Vimeo.

Found by www.joecoppard.com.

DIGITAL PUBLISHING FOR WRITERS - GETTING STARTED Saturday, July 16, 2011 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM (GMT)

2011-06-30T15:02:00.000+01:00

COURSE AT THE UNLIBRARY, Haringey

Saturday, July 16, 2011 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM(GMT)
ONLY £35 - TO BOOK A PLACE GO TO http://digitalpublishing.eventbrite.com/

Course description

A practical introduction to writing, publishing and earning in the digital age brought to you by if:book, the think and do tank exploring the future of the book in the digital age.

Who is the course for?

Creative writers at all levels who want to learn how to use digital tools to develop and publish their

work, to market themselves and make money from their writing.

Who are the tutors?

We want to ensure that students receive a degree of personal attention, so we provide two tutors

Chris Meade

Co-director of the Institute for the Future of the Book and founder of if:book

London, was previously CEO of Booktrust and the Poetry Society. A writer and blogger, he’s

been published by Penguin, written for radio, the stage and the web; his multimedia novella

www.insearchoflosttim.net was described by the Independent on Sunday as “a jeu d’esprit and just

possibly the future of fiction”.

Kati Rynne

An experienced private tutor with a postgraduate degree in secondary school teaching,

Kati has spent six years at digital education company Teachers TV as project manager/web producer.

She spent a year collaborating to produce websites for writers and currently co-produces digital

literature projects. She writes fiction for young people and was a co-author of the 24hr Book. See

katirynne.com

Workshop Outline

Explore digital publishing options and consider which of them might best suit your writings.

We’ll investigate:

• ebooks (enhanced, illuminated and print on demand)

• multi-platform fictions and alternate reality games

• Blogs, websites and social media

You will look at some basic ways to promote yourself online and to reach your target readership;

check out examples of 'amplified authors' who have proven success in self-branding, online marketing and

communicating with readers.

What equipment do I need to bring with me?

A laptop (optional). We will provide free wi-fi. You’re welcome to bring with you a piece of writing

you’re working on (optional).

structural impediments to real impact

2011-06-28T09:49:00.001+01:00

from TITLE FIGHT, article in Times Higher Education by Mathew Reisz.

Read the rest HERE

From another point of view, of course, it is the publishers themselves that are the problem. Ricardo Blaug, reader in democracy and political theory at the University of Westminster, believes that "you'd get much more interesting work" if academics "could self-publish or be published by small presses and it was still seen as legitimate by the research excellence framework".

Like many people working in disciplines such as politics, Blaug has no problem with the canons of academic rigour ("You need to justify that something is worth taking seriously, you can't just stamp your feet"), it's just that he would also like to make an impact on public opinion and debate. Yet he believes that "there are structural impediments to real impact" - notably that publishers' pricing policies mean that "no one can read your work".

Blaug's solution has been to publish a monograph with Palgrave Macmillan, How Power Corrupts: Cognition and Democracy in Organisations (2010), while finding other ways to ensure that his arguments become a "vibrant hub for discussion and engagement". Although the book ends with a fairly quiet call to arms, he has distilled its central themes into a punchy seven-page pamphlet that was at the heart of a four-day event, How Power Corrupts, organised by if:book, the Institute for the Future of the Book, and the Roundhouse Group in May. This included a discussion with Lord Owen, a film, drama workshops and, significantly, a panel on "The future of academic publishing".

if:book cafe team

2011-06-22T16:49:00.000+01:00

Based at the Unlibrary we're planning an IF:BOOK CAFE, both a place to meet and eat and drink AND a shop to sell digital and paper books and literary things. We're looking for a small team of writers and digital makers to work with - no fee but the plan to strike deals for each project on how any income is divided up.

We'll make all kinds of products and reading experiences, from handmade scrolls to multimedia episodes and we'll seek readers locally, globally and everything in between. If you're interested please email chris at futureofthebook dot org dot uk with more about you and your experience.

the Waste Land app reviewed

2011-06-13T19:04:00.000+01:00

article written for the literary platform, June 13th, 2011

Seamus Heaney says it in the Perspectives section of Faber’s beautifully produced app of The Waste Land:

“Eliot always was accompanied always by interpretation. There was an official way of reading him from very early on and therefore I never had that experience of being alone and a little bewildered and then coming to it, being excited by it, getting to know it on one’s own.” Does this elegant app help readers to be alone with the poem or force us all back into class to be told how to do it properly?

I had the opposite of Heaney’s experience of Eliot: I’ve loved the music of his words since I came across them as a teenager, have never studied Eliot’s work formally nor expected to understand it, but profoundly enjoyed the bewilderment. I’ve never thought of him as intimidating because I have always encountered him alone, in a setting where nobody was judging my critical responses. Now I’m finding this multi-layered app intimidates as well as illuminates, though it absolutely doesn’t try to tell us what it all means. Eliot’s own notes were thought at the time to be a parody of footnotes, and actually the videoed providers of perspectives here mostly end up saying make of it what you will.

The gallery is my favourite bit, giving us a clutch of relevant postcards – of Bob Dylan, Dante Alligheri, the first Mrs Eliot, a crowd of people crossing the river Thames,

‘so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.’

These images create real breathing space around the poem. They evoke, inform and leave the poem be.

There’s a picture of the first edition of Prufrock in a plain brown cover, then all the pages of the typescript manuscript with the inky slashes of Pound’s fierce corrections and comments. The notes, presented in a Comment-press style, can be brought up when wanted, then brushed away if you want the text plain. Likewise it’s a doddle to switch between the different audio readings or switch them off entirely.

The navigation works a dream and the design is classy in that Faber way. It doesn’t do anything more than an old CDRom could really, but the speedy app-iness of it makes this a personal reading experience rather than a clunky piece of ‘edu-tainment’.

Fiona Shaw performs the whole piece on video from a Dublin room, and there are interviews with a few different Eliot experts, including an ex-punk rocker alongside Raine, Heaney and Jeanette Winterson in the Perspective Section. There’s a kinky kind of pleasure in rubbing my finger across the faces of Famous Seamus and friends to rewind them.

Of the readings of the entire text, Ted Hughes is thunderous, Eliot scratchy monotonous, Shaw’s performance (which I loved on stage) too acTORish up close for my poetic taste. Despite his American accent, Viggo Mortensen’s reading of the poem comes closest to the voice I hear in my head as I read. Being able to read and listen along and then close my eyes as the words wash over is luxurious and something I want to be able to do with lots more poems. In fact this feels exactly how poems should be consumed.

I’m writing this review on my way back from a(nother!) conference on digital publishing, this one at the Scottish Universities Insight Institute in Glasgow, where I’ve been arguing (again) that the future of the book is about readers and writers not the publishing industry. It is compelling new work made fresh for these platforms by living authors which should be leading the way, not lavish enhancements of guaranteed classics. The Waste Land still feels like a wonderful learning resource rather than a digitally illuminated text or work of art in its own right. Which is fine, because it really is wonderful.

happy birthday mr d

2011-05-19T19:21:00.002+01:00

novel experiments

2011-05-19T14:29:00.000+01:00

I like this analogue Kindle/iBook shelf but I've lost the link to the article about it so can't tell you who it's by. Sorry!

I did go to the culminating event of A Novel Experiment by Tom Abba, a piece of immersive digital fiction which began with a large tube being posted anonymously to a list of readers a few months ago.
The tube contained a rather beautiful print and a link to a website. Those who received them were fascinated and eager for more, those who didn't clamoured to be included. Then we received a memory stick with lots of writing on.

And that's when I and others realised we were not prepared to put lots of time into reading an anonymous text that seemed fragmented and liable not to make much sense. There were links to lovely imagery and movies, intriguing snippets of story, but nothing to tempt me to plunge in.

The trouble is that if an experience begins with a huge print through the post, I feel it should end with a mysterious stranger knocking at my door. A reception at the Wellcome trust was very pleasant but somehow a bit of a let down after all those raised expectations!

I've always wanted to make reading experiences that include real objects as well as online text, so this was a valuable experiment revealing what did and didn't work. Full marks to Tom for making it happen.

Read more from Tom HERE

with common people like you

2011-05-15T10:16:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Joel Stewart for finding this nice music which you can listen to as you read how enjoyable the past week has been, exploring the issues around power and corruption in the company of the Roundhouse Group and Free Word friends and colleagues, artist in residence Ruth Franklin, an array of hugely experienced and fascinating speakers and participants. Roundhouse group members will be blogging about the whole experience at www.roundhousejournal.org over the next few days.
Thanks to all involved in HOW POWER CORRUPTS.

occupying free word (gently)

2011-05-11T15:50:00.000+01:00

hubris

2011-05-11T13:07:00.000+01:00

Here's a clip of Ricardo Blaug and Lord Owen in action at our launch event last night, which was full and fascinating.

spitting images

2011-05-10T14:29:00.000+01:00

I hope our guest speaker tonight won't mind if I put up this reminder of alliances of yore.

now #powercorrupts

2011-05-10T14:18:00.001+01:00

Here's a longer piece of Ricardo Blaug on How Power Corrupts. Hear him tonight with Lord David Owen of Labour, SPD, LibDem, Bosnia, No Vote fame, author of a book on Hubris which he'll be signing tonight. And we'll be selling copies of Ricardo's book - and a new pamplet written specially for the event.

See you later I hope. Book a place at www.freewordonline.com (or turn up on the door and mention Bookfutures for free admission). Places are limited at the Drama Workshop on Wednesday though, so you must book for that.

book xylophone

2011-05-08T21:31:00.003+01:00

I love books and drums - so love this use for the paperback, found by Bob (Stein).

ifsoflo friday

2011-05-03T14:03:00.000+01:00

Dear Literature Sector friends and colleagues,

The final day of HOW POWER CORRUPTS, our curated book event at the Free Word Centre is IFSOFLO FRIDAY, 13th May (lucky for some!), a chance for literature organisations, writers, publishers and others to meet and talk about the changing landscape of arts funding, digital platforms and the new political goalposts in austerity Britain.

I'll be at the Free Word all day and we're holding 2 sessions, one at 11.30 on the politics of localism, one at 2.30 on academic publishing, but unconference rules will apply and you are welcome to discuss other issues too. We've got some special guests who have already agreed to come along, and members of the Roundhouse Group will be there to help give our thinking a critical and radical edge.

Writer Kate Pullinger, publishers Timo Hannay, Frances Pinter, my fellow Unlibrarian and social media coach Anke Holst are amongst those who have already agreed to attend as well as Dr Ricardo Blaug and members of the Roundhouse Journal group.

Please do come along and, if you've already decided to, please pass on this message to others you'd like to meet there.

You'll be able to buy books from our 18th booksellet Robin of the Portablebookshop.com including Ricardo Blaug's How Power Corrupts at half price (a mere £25 then!) and we'll be making Unlibrary profiles too. (See www.unlibrary.posterous.com for more on what they are) .

Following the event we're revamping the ifsoflo.ning.com website, thanks to funding from Arts Council England, and aiming to provide more active support to literature organisations and professionals exploring digital possibilities in these challenging times.

As the commercial sector rushes headlong into flogging its newly digitised wares, those whose first allegiance is to the readers and writers of imaginative literature need to think together about a bigger vision of the future of the book.

Please let me know if you'd like to come along, or be involved via an online debate, or would be interested in a portable if:book salon nearer to you over the coming months. You can book (free) tickets at www.freewordonline.com and join the debate at www.roundhousejournal.org

All the best

Chris

le busque illuminates blaug

2011-04-30T15:28:00.001+01:00

A new version of Ricardo's intro to the theme of How Power Corrupts, enhanced by visuals from the wonderful Toni Le Busque. Book now for our events from 10th - 13th May at the Free Word www.freewordonline.com and go to www.roundhousejournal.org.uk to get involved.

ricardo blaug

2011-04-25T12:35:00.001+01:00

Here is a short film of Dr Ricardo Blaug discussing why he wrote the book we're curating at the Free Word Centre from the 10th-13th May. Tickets can now be booked from www.freewordonline.com and go to www.roundhousejournal.org for more information on the event and to comment on the issues it's exploring.

fleeting

2011-04-16T09:34:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Caleb Klaces for passing this onto me re. Unlibrary etc.

"I created and am heading a new project: Fleeting Pages. I'm writing
to see if you have any interest in being a part of the project-
submitting work, running a workshop, hosting an event/reading of some
kind...

In essence, Fleeting Pages consists of taking over one of the spaces
left empty by a failed big box bookstore in Pittsburgh, for one month
starting April 30th, and filling it with independent & self-published
work of all kinds, book arts, workshops, events, and....? All
revolving around various forms of written self-expression.

The idea is a result of a few things; the toll taken on local
booksellers by big box bookstores, a concern for the cultural effects
of big box stores in both their existence and their failure, a general
frustration with the model of the publishing industry, and a great
appreciation for independent and self-published works of all kinds, as
well as for those who create them.

So far, we have work coming in from all over the US as well as from
the UK and Australia. Support for the project has been coming in from
all over as well- 2,000 unique visitors on our website in less than 2
weeks from 47 states and 30 other countries. And national media
inquires.

You can find more information on the website: www.fleetingpages.com

Feel free to ask any questions you may have. And please share the
information with any others you know who may have interest- presses,
writers, artists, friends...

Thank you,

-jodi.

--
Fleeting Pages
A pop-up book emporium of reading, making, and window licking
Opening April 30, 2011

www.fleetingpages.com
www.facebook.com/fleetingpages
www.twitter.com/fleetingpages

jodi@fleetingpages.com

no furniture so charming

2011-04-15T14:49:00.000+01:00

Thu 21 Apr

No Furniture So Charming

Philip Jones, Nora Daly, Chris Meade, Charles Holland, Jon Stone & Kirsty Irving, Peter Law, Dan Thompson, Trenton Oldfield, Tom Armitage, Nicky Kirk, Rachel Coldicutt, Ruth Beale, Stef Lewandowski & more
hosted by Travis Elborough

Bethnal Green Library | 7pm | £5 adv/£7 door

A night devoted to the architecture of knowledge and the future of book-borrowing. Much more than just bricks and mortar, the public lending library has long been considered the cornerstone of an educated and literate population, but what lies ahead for the future?

Borrowing its title from Sidney Smith’s description of books, No Furniture So Charming gathers artists, writers, creatives, technologists and architects to present their vision for the library of the future. Be it a personal utopia, a visionary work of science fiction, a digital or practical re-imagining of user centred design or a call to action.

A crack panel of hardback, paperback and e-book judges will discuss and debate the merits of each idea as they pay homage to a revered space in times of change.

THE PANEL

Nora Daly (British Library)
Charles Holland (FAT Architecture)
Chris Meade (if:book)
Phillip Jones (The Bookseller & co-founder of FutureBook)

THE PRESENTERS

Tom Armitage (Game designer and Technologist)
Kirsten Campbell (Writer and Educational games designer)
Rachel Coldicutt (Creative Producer)
Ruth Beale (Artist & Pamphlet Librarian)
Nicky Kirk (Architect, Amenity Space)
Peter Law (Reader of books and Digital producer)
Stef Lewandowski (Co-founder of Aframe, Clore Fellow)
Trenton Oldfield (Coordinator, This Is Not A Gateway)
Jon Stone & Kirsty Irving (Sidekick Books/Fuselit)
Dan Thompson (Empty Shops Network)

Hosted by Travis Elborough

Travis Elborough is the author of The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair With the Routemaster, The Long-Player Goodbye: The Album From vinyl To iPodAnd Back Again and Wish You Were Here – England on Sea. He reviews for The Guardian, and has contributed to New Statesman, The Sunday Times, Zembla and The Oldie.

Co-curated by Katy Beale

Lord Owen to appear at HOW POWER CORRUPTS curation, may 10th - 13th, the free word centre

2011-04-13T17:01:00.005+01:00

10th to the 13th of May

if:book and The Roundhouse Journal present

HOW POWER CORRUPTS

The Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London

A week long curation of a book by Dr Ricardo Blaug

Supported by Palgrave Macmillan.

if:book and roundhousejournal.org will use Dr. Blaug’s timely work to spark discussion across formats: online, onscreen, on the wall and in person. Join our occupation of the Free Word Centre - join the debate!

This event presents an inside-out examination of both the idea of corruption by power and Ricardo Blaug’s book itself. As we draw out the book’s ideas from their medium through discussions, theatre, art and writing, Dr. Blaug’s participation throughout the week also represents a unique opportunity to question an author as they elucidate their arguments.

Throughout the week if:book’s Portable Bookshop will be selling a range of titles including a pamphlet by Dr. Blaug written for the event. Visual explorations of power and corruption will be spread across the walls, while films will be projected in the hall.

If you are interested in any part of this event visit
http://roundhousejournal.org/how-power-corrupts/

Email roundhousejournal@gmail.com
twitter: @roundhousejrnl @ifbook

All events are free, except where indicated. However, places are limited, so please book ahead.

Tuesday 10^thMAY,

POWER & HUBRIS

6.30pm: Lord David Owen and Dr Ricardo Blaug on political power and the corruption of citizenry.

Having served as Foreign Secretary, founded the SDP, and negotiated for peace in the former Yugoslavia, Lord Owen is a major political figure. Once a practicing neurologist, in 2008 he published In Sickness and In Power, which coined the term ‘hubris syndrome’. A revised and updated paperback edition is due out shortly.

Dr Ricardo Blaug, author of How Power Corrupts, is Reader in Democracy and Political Theory at the University of Westminster. Dr. Blaug has also worked as a psychiatric social worker and a public manager.

Tickets £5.00 / £3.00 concs

Wednesday 11th

POWER DYNAMICS

11.30 am : Drama Workshop

The Free Word hosts a drama workshop using physical techniques to explore corruption, power dynamics and censorship led by TripWires - places limited

ONLINE DELIBERATION
3.00 pm : Panel discussion

featuring Professor David Graeber (Goldsmiths), Tim Hardy (Sukey), Dr Ricardo Blaug (Westminster)

Existing internet fora suffer hierarchy and corruption by power: who can be most scathing, who can post most frequently, who has had their blog referenced by mainstream media. The panel will consider: How can we challenge online power dynamics? What structures online forums and how can they be made accessible? How can deliberative and consensual ways of organsing practised online spread to institutions?

Thursday 12th
DROP-IN SESSIONS AT THE POWER CLINIC

11am – 5pm : Come to the Free Word and share stories, anecdotes and reflections, listen to poets, view art work and add to the ongoing conversation.

CHRONICLES OF PROTEST

2.30pm : Film showing
a film by Michael Chanan, video blogger for the New Statemen and documentary film maker, about the movement against government spending cuts in the universities and beyond with students, activists and citizens of the real big society

HOW POWER CORRUPTS
6.30pm : DR RICARDO BLAUG

Most agree with Lord Acton that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It seems to apply to history’s cruel dictators, perhaps also to the behaviour of contemporary political and economic elites and even across the hierarchic organisations of our everyday lives. Yet few have looked closely at the mechanisms through which power corrupts, and how those afflicted remain unaware of their condition. A provocative exploration of the usually hidden, and little understood, psychological politics of organisations.

Friday 13th
IFSOFLO FRIDAY

Two roundtable events for literature organizations and all those interested in the future of the word – free but places are limited

THE FUTURE OF ACADEMIC PUBLISHING

An invited audience will discuss where academic publishing is today and to what extent it is in crisis. We will ask: What is the impact of the publishing process on the academic author? To what extent do publishing platforms dictate research priorities? What role should publishing play in unlocking academic knowledge? Is internet-enabled accessibility something to be celebrated or guarded against?

THE POWER OF LOCAL

This event will bring together community activists and literature organisations. Does the Big Society mean stripping away bureaucratic impediments to communities’ creativity and self-determination, or leaving the disadvantaged to sink or swim? How does it relate to libertarian community politics – and what opportunities do social media provide to disrupt power relations and create radical new forms of community publishing, that span the distance between the local and the global?

TO BOOK GO TO WWW.FREEWORDONLINE.COM

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO JOIN THE DEBATE GO TO WWW.ROUNDHOUSEJOURNAL.ORG AND

WWW.IFSOFLO.NING.COM

the look and feel of real bookselling

2011-04-13T11:57:00.002+01:00

The London Bookfair has been fun, a great opportunity to meet up with friends and colleagues I've met here and around the world since setting up if:book and in my previous work at Booktrust. But trade musings on business models concerning apps and downloads seem to have less and less to do with the bigger discussion about how our literary culture can evolve through new technology.

On my way home from the fair it was wonderful to call in on the pub in Crouch End where Robin, bookseller at if:book's new Portable Bookshop, was talking books with drinkers around the excellent selection of stock provided through the Big Green Bookshop. 18th century anachronist Robin is proving to be an able bookseller, bringing coffee shops alive for the 21st century, and though sales are not at commercially viable levels yet, it feels like we're onto something. Here again is our first press coverage and latest post from www.portablebookshop.com

The Portable Bookshop is up and running, trialling a list of venues to pop up in around Crouch End.

The Hornsey Library Cafe, The Devonshire Arms, Railway Tavern and Kiss The Sky have all housed us so far. To keep in touch with where you can find us, follow @portablebooks on Twitter.

Tomorrow, Thursday 14th April we'll be at Coffee Circus from 9-5pm and the Bookshop will be in residence at the DEVONSHIRE HOUSE pub in the heart of Crouch End every WEDNESDAY FROM 2.00 - 9.00pm

Please come along to buy books and talk about what you're reading.

We stock a small but carefully selected range of titles including bestsellers, local interest and local authors, children's books, cult fiction, art and design and much more.

We can order books for you and also do our best to find the best next book for you. Tell Robin and I what you most like to read - see if we can seek out something that will grab you.

And when you've browsed our collection, please stay awhile and talk to us and other customers about books - and life.

Tell us about the writing you love and discuss the future of the book with us.

Anyone interested in promoting the bookshop, housing a pop up session in their shop, cafe, bar or any private functions where booklovers gather, in Crouch End and around London, or setting up a bookgroup to meet during Portable Bookshop pop ups, please contact @ifbook chris at futureofthebook dot org dot uk

COMING SOON:

Signings and drop-ins by local authors,

The if:book, Portable Bookshop Guide To Digital Reading,

Book of the Week - one title we will highlight, sell copies of and also sell titles we recommend to fans of the book.

And keep telling us what books YOU'D like to see for sale in the Portable Bookshop

- Robin and Chris, @raliel and @ifbook, @portablebooks

';';'ll';''ll},,,.=l````

2011-04-12T09:16:00.000+01:00

Thanks Alain Pierrot of if:lire for finding this typographic gem

origins and passions closely referred

2011-04-11T12:14:00.000+01:00

I just came across this article about TOC Bologna.

http://www.apogeonline.com/webzine/2011/03/28/vince-chi-conserva-la-passione-per-i-contenuti

Here's the google 'translation' of the bit about us.

"A call that has to deal with the knowledge that the online community they belong to those who live every day and it is therefore necessary to enter on tiptoe, with great respect, always trying to bring value. Two examples to follow in this regard? The experiences of Chris Meade of if: book and community collaborative writing of Jacob Lewis, Figment , because only with close reference to his origins and his passion for content publishing and sharing them can deal with the digital ecosystem and look ahead."

2011-04-11T11:35:00.002+01:00

bedtime

2011-04-10T12:55:00.000+01:00

A book you can sleep in - see more HERE

And that reminds me of this old favourite

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII////IIIIIII

2011-04-07T16:02:00.003+01:00

Two nice book videos found on the Oxford World Book Capital site.

tools funds tomes and libroids

2011-04-06T15:59:00.005+01:00

So I've now spoken at a Tools of Change conference and where better to do it than in Bologna on the eve of the Children's Book Fair that I was never allowed to get to when I was Director of Booktrust!
I was in conversation with Jacob Lewis, CEO of Figment.com and I filmed him afterwards for the Young Poets Network site.

I returned to find that if:book's somewhat last minute application to the Arts Council for what's called portfolio funding had been rejected, though their evaluation of our work was highly positive.

Section one of their appraisal concludes:

"Based on the successful delivery of their previous projects, and their unique combination of expertise in relevant fields, combined with strong and experienced leadership, if:book is well placed to deliver the proposed programme and help the literature sector adapt to the challenges of the digital age."

So it was a bit of blow that the next para says:

"The application was assessed as making a strong contribution to our goals and priorities.
However, we cannot fund all the strong applications because the budget is limited."

Hmmf. But I am reassured that our work is valued at ACE and hopeful that we will be able to pitch to other funding streams in the future.

The Portable Bookshop is setting up in the Devonshire Arms as we speak, selling books to Crouch Enders, thanks to biggreenbookshop.com who have been fighting their way out of financial troubles with determination and some success. Meanwhile we're working on if:book's guide to digital reading, available soon in booklet and pdf form.

When I spoke in Freiburg last year I saw THE LIBROID in action and met its creator Jurgen Neffe. It's a book of the future type iPad app which is now available from the App Store. It may sound like a villain from Doctor Who, but it looks extremely good and deserves serious attention.

and in other news

2011-03-25T22:48:00.001Z

I'm off to TOC Bologna and looking forward to it. Back in time for Portable Bookshop's next outing on Wednesday at Devonshire pub and Thurs at the Library Cafe Crouch End.

history of the library

2011-03-23T21:44:00.004Z

Professor Richard Gameson delivers a fascinating talk on the history of libraries at the Cubitt Gallery event I spoke at last weekend. He's a is a riveting speaker and deeply knowledgeable about all things book. It was a pleasure to see and hear him again. His view of the evolution of reading has proved hugely inspiring to if:book in exploring where books go next.

Richard Gameson is Professor of the History of the Book at Durham University. He specialises in the history of the book from Antiquity to the Renaissance, and in medieval art. He has published some seventy studies on medieval manuscripts, book collections, art and cultural history, including The Old Library (1988), The Early Medieval Bible (1994), The Role of Art in the late Anglo-Saxon Church (1995), The study of the Bayeux Tapestry (1997) The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (1999), Augustine of Canterbury and the Conversion of England (1999), The Scribe Speaks: colophons in early English Manuscripts (2002), and Codex Aureus: an eighth-century gospel book (2001-2). He has recently completed a catalogue and study of the earliest books of Canterbury Cathedral, and is editing The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol I. He would welcome enquiries from anyone wishing to pursue advanced work in the fields of manuscripts and books, libraries and collections, illumination and decoration.

accommodating

2011-03-23T14:59:00.001Z

An Accommodation (A Simon Armitage Poem) from Frank Pescod on Vimeo.

I can just about claim Dave Pescod as an ex-student of mine given that I met him when I was tutoring a digital writing course at the Arvon in Lumb Bank, but actually he's a very experienced writer, designer and film maker. This film wot he sent me the link to is lovely, and Simon A's poem sad in the best way. I like this combination a lot.

portable bookshop lifts off

2011-03-21T10:54:00.005Z

Well, this Sunday Robin Stevenson, 18th century anachronist and now bookseller, launched if:book's Portable Bookshop in Kiss The Sky, a bar in Crouch End, selling a range of books sourced by the wonderful Big Green Bookshop and including local authors, local themes and plenty of bestselling and brilliant books recommended by notable locals. It was wonderful to see real books being sold in such a characterful, conversational way. The response was wonderful and trade brisk, though providing clear evidence of how hard it is to sell in quantities that would sustain all the overheads of a permanent shop.
We're excited to be working to ensure the future of bookshopping in forms that take account of changing trends in how we spend our money and experience literature.

For now, here's a lovely blogpost from SIMON of the BIG GREEN, and
evidence of our first up-pop and some of the supply chain:

how power corrupts. may 10th - 13th, the free word centre

2011-03-17T13:26:00.000Z

if:book UK is collaborating with Palgrave Macmillan, the Roundhouse journal, the Free Word Centre and the University of Westminster to present a curation around HOW POWER CORRUPTS, a book by Dr Ricardo Blaug.

Events during the week include a talk by Dr Ricardo Blaug which will be available in pamphlet form and online as a film animated by artist Toni Le Busque who will also be making a giant drawing documenting what happens; a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop; Dr Blaug in conversation with a major political figure tbc ; an Unlibrary and Portable Bookshop where How Power Corrupts will be for sale alongside other related material to browse and buy. Discussions between the Roundhouse Group and visitors to the Free Word Centre will all feed into the making of a website and newspaper, created during the week.

On friday May 13th in the morning morning we're holding a roundtable discussion on THE POWER OF LOCAL, an event bringing together community activists and literature organisations. Does the Big Society means stripping away bureaucracy and redtape to hand power to the people or cutting funds to leave the weak to sink or swim? How does it relate to libertarian community politics – and what opportunities do social media provide to disrupt power relations and create radical new forms of community publishing, from the hyperlocal to the global?

In the afternoon we'll hold a second roundtable discussion which will bring together publishers, academics, writers, students and digital creators to debate the future of academic publishing in the digital age.

The curation will offer a unique exploration into how an academic text can spark a wider discussion on a topical theme, pushing its contents into the public domain. In an attempt to break down the research silo and bring the conversations surrounding a book to the fore, these events seek to bridge a gap between theory and practice – asking academe to inform the day-to-day.

What are the implications of digital platforms for academic publishing?
And how does power in politics, relationships and work, change the way we act?

We'll be publishing more details shortly. To register interest go to http://www.eventbrite.com/event/924163197

--

glassfutures

2011-03-17T09:27:00.001Z

In the future we will smile all the time and tap on things and go to meetings about our media companies and all shall be wipe-clean with no sticky stains and bland music playing playing

soft launch this weekend

2011-03-15T17:04:00.003Z

merci facebook

2011-03-09T22:45:00.001Z

Journalist, writer and one of this year's Jerwood mentees at the Arvon Foundation,
Lin Noueihed sent us this photo she took in Tunis a few weeks ago, testament
to the influence of social media on recent uprisings.