jeromemartin.ca

Mixed Models for Publishing and Learning

The blogosphere has been full of excellent discussions of how electronic publishing will or will not, should or should not, replace paper publishing. Most of the discussion has focused on an either-or scenario: we'll have paper books or electronic books; we'll have paper newspapers or we'll read the news on a screen. The future of publishing, learning and new technology will be far more promising and more complex than some of us expect.

The good news is that we have choices and that we can access information and knowledge in many different ways. We can now receive news and other information on our iPhones or other devices while we're on buses or while we're sitting in coffee shops. We can watch conference presentations on our iPods and on our computers.

Most of us are now creators on the web as well as consumers. We write blogs, various types of messages and we produce podcasts, both video and audio. Our comments and our content can be read by people throughout the world.

Most newspapers are still producing paper products and are also online. I can still subscribe (and I do) to various newspapers and I can read these same newspapers online. I have a choice. Each day two newspapers are delivered to my door, one local and one from Toronto. On Sunday or Monday the weekend New York Times is dropped at my door. I also subscribe to the Maple Creek News, a bi-weekly paper from my home town.

But I also read headlines and stories from most of these papers online, via applications on my iPhone or Twitter messages. Paper products and electronic messages each serve a role.

Paper books continue to be available in thousands of bookstores in North America, and online, at reasonable prices. Many of these are also available electronically. We choose which format works best for us.

We have many options with regard to learning, and some of these are free. We depend on a combination of formal and informal learning. Even formal face-to-face learning can work effectively in conjunction with distance and e-learning: but most schools and universities in Canada and in many other countries have not supported mixed models of education.

Change is healthy and exciting, and it brings more choice, not less. Paper books, film cameras, newspapers and other tried and true technologies will still be used by some people if they choose them and pay for them. Mixed models of paper and e-books, face-to-face learning and podcasts, and film and digital photography are working.

If you like paper newspapers and books, buy them. If you prefer to use other ways of being informed and communicating with others, use your iPod or computer. The combination of paper and e-products gives us options that could not have been dreamt of even a few years ago. And it will only get more more exciting.

Black and White Photographs of the Great Plains

Thanks to those of you who responded to the recent Saskatchewan photographs by leaving comments or sending e-mail messages.

Several people have asked about whether my black and white photographs which I am making daily will be included in this blog after I've returned from my residency at the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend. Some of them will, and some will be posted on my photography website.

Those of you who are interested in photography from the Great Plains may wish to go to that site and specifically to the sections on Plains and Plains People. The site also includes a short biography and access to a free download of my e-book Golden Prairie, a photo history of that village with text and some audio.

I'll be in the darkroom later this summer producing new work and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Cappuccino U: A Canadian Bestseller

Cappuccino U: A new way of learning and working, a free e-book available on the Spotted Cow Press website, was downloaded by more than 6,000 people in the twelve months since it was released. This book has reached more readers than a Canadian bestseller (5,000 copies per year) and was probably circulated to other readers by those who downloaded it.

Golden Prairie: A New E- Book

Tomorrow at the Homesteading Revisited symposium I will launch my new e-book Golden Prairie, a photographic history of Golden Prairie, Saskatchewan, with text and audio. It's in PDF and is now available as a free download from Spotted Cow Press.
I'll discuss the book and the response to it tomorrow. I'll also review the key themes from the symposium.

p-books and e-books

Rob Preece suggests that paper books are for decoration and e- books are for reading. Most of us who love paper books – and read them – may disagree, but it's an interesting idea.

Excellence in Publishing: Books on Photographers and Photography

I love to visit bookstores, at home and abroad. I also enjoy visiting libraries to learn about books which are published locally. I'm in Burlington, Vermont, home of several fine bookstores and libraries. Thus far I've visited two Borders stores (one large downtown store and one mall store) and a large Barnes & Noble store. And, yes, I've bought a book or two.
I'm fascinated by the types of books that publishers choose to publish: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography, business, current events, biography and natural history. Obviously in the market served by the stores in this city each of those categories has a strong following.
Excellence in publishing includes the choice of books, the quality of editing, design, production and marketing. Publishers in the USA have a large market to serve but they also have a lot of competition. This apparently benefits the consumer since the books produced in this country tend to be high in quality and relatively modest in price.
New England publishers, and American publishers in general, publish high quality photography books, books that deal with famous photographers and regional photographers. Many of these photographers produce or have produced primarily black and white images. I read and collect such books and always buy at least one on most of my trips to the USA.
I bought Harry Callahan: The Photographer At Work several days ago and have been reading it and enjoying the photographs a few pages at a time. The book is published by Yale University Press in conjunction with The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson. It's a comprehensive look at an important and fascinating artist. It's also a fine example of the art and craft of bookmaking. The prints in the book are well reproduced, vibrant, full-range black and white images. No short cuts. Nothing lacking. It's a large hardcover book, 192 pages, with 227 tritones and 20 colour illustrations, and it's a bargain at $50 US.
Photography books, like many art books, will continue to be published in paper form, at least in some countries, because there is a significant market for them. Owning a high quality photo book is not quite as enjoyable as owning original photographs by famous photographers, but it comes close, as close as most of us will get.
While paper photo books are or can be wonderful products there is also great interest and logic in using the electronic media to publish photographic material.
Last week the Drumlummon Institute of Helena, Montana, published Drumlummon Views, an extensive, high-quality online publication which includes poetry, fiction, reviews and a portfolio of excellent photographs by David Spear. This PDF journal (276 pages) focuses on Montana and its writers, poets and photographers. The photographs are easy to view since one can change their sizes easily. E-journals and e-books of photographs will allow more photographers (and other creative people) to publish and distribute their work.
If you're interested in photographic books stop by Photo-Eye Gallery and Bookstore in Santa Fe, New Mexico. While I recommend a real visit to Photo-Eye and Santa Fe, a virtual visit will also be interesting. The bookstore stocks virtually all of the new photo books on the market and provides considerable information about them in their newsletter.
Photo books, be they paper or PDF, allow us to learn from photographers, their photographs and the essays which accompany them.
We can revisit these books years later and then pass them on to others, just as we do with our own photographs.

The Book as Precious Object

I spent my early years on a farm and in a small town in southwestern Saskatchewan. Most families in that area had very few books, and even the school had very few books other than the textbooks we used. In high school we bought most of our text books, usually from older students.
Our small school did not have a library. However, each month or two each class received a box of 'supplementary reading books' sent by the Saskatchewan Department of Education in Regina. Opening the box was an exciting experience for us. We would pick the books that we wanted and then put our names on lists for the other books.
I discovered novels by Enid Blyton when I was in Grade Five. Her books, including The Island of Adventure and The Castle of Adventure, were also very popular with my fellow students. Each of us wanted to get her books first from the book boxes or to be high on the list. We waited patiently for our chance to read these and other books.
Books were rare and precious objects in that small town. We read every book that we could find.
That small town is far smaller than it was when I left there forty-six years ago. Nevertheless, they now have a library, located in the Post Office.
Books are now everywhere. One can buy them online, borrow them from libraries, or buy them in small or large bookstores. Last year in the USA 1.2 million books were published, although only 2% of those were printed in quantities of 5,000 or more.
We'll have paper books for some time to come, but the advent of new types of books – interactive, mulitmedia products available electronically – will change the book business significantly. Indeed, changes are already occurring. As energy costs increase the cost of shipping books around the country and around the world will become very high.
New innovative e-books containing audio, video, links and other innovative features will change our concept of what a book is and what it can do. Knowledge will continue to become more accessible to everyone.
The paper book will become a precious object again. Paper books produced in the future will be similar to some books produced today: very high in quality, archival, highly desirable, but at a higher cost.
We'll use electronic products to store most of the knowledge that we have, but some of us will continue to collect fine paper books.
Some of the books we own will become collectible. Don't give your paper books away and don't sell them until you check their value using a source such as Abebooks. You may find that some of them are valuable.
Keep books that you would like to pass on to your family and which have special meaning for you. Read them, enjoy them and conserve them carefully.

A new standard for e-books

I spoke at the Tri-Province Forum on Publishing in Winnipeg last week about e-books and e-journals. The audience was a small group of publishers from western Canada and funding agency representatives from the Government of Canada and The Canada Council for the Arts.
I told my audience that e-books were here already and would be used more and more in various areas of publishing, including fiction. The reaction to my presentation was quite positive, considering that this is a subject on which publishers are seldom neutral.
I used the term 'traditional e-books' to describe e-books which were simply words on a screen – digitized text that looked the same on screen as on paper. Such e-books still have a lot of advantages or potential advantages including the abilitiy to search for key words. The cost of a digitized text is usually significantly lower than that of a paper product and, of course, e-books are easily stored, shipped and carried (students need not carry Mt. Everest backpacks back and forth to class).
The new standard I suggest for e-books has nothing to do with DRM or witch hunts against PDF: it involves interactivity and features which can make an e-book an experience rather than an imitation of a paper book.
The letter E in the born-digital e-books of the future will stand for Experience: the experience of hearing and seeing the author or critics discussing or reading the book; the experience of linking to other books, sites and experiences; and the experience of using incorporated video, audio and even game components in the book.
You'll hear more about such products in the near future, and the e-books you currently have on your laptop, PDA or iPod will seem very traditional and clunky.