Instant Books at NYPL
By Staff -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2007
Imagine if you could walk into a library, choose from a list of books, and have your very own copy printed in less than half an hour. A new company called On Demand Books now makes that possible.
Recently, a reporter walked out of New York’s Science, Industry, and Business Library with a 274-page version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which was printed, glued, and bound, complete with laminated color covers—in just under 15 minutes.
Welcome to the world of books on demand. With a push of a button, a technician from New York-based On Demand Books showed how it’s done with something called the “Espresso Book Machine” (EBM).
Company CEO and cofounder Dane Neller (above) says EBM will change the future of books, especially the borrowed kind. “For libraries, this reverses a 500-year-old distribution supply chain that was initially based on a model of 'print-ship-sell,'” Neller says. Now being marketed, EBM will shortly be for sale or lease to librarians and retailers. Its proprietary software transmits a digital file to the machine, which creates a paperback indistinguishable from the factory-made title.
