The Pagemaster

November 6, 2007 - 1:00am

“As people start becoming more comfortable with digital, you get people who are used to reading online. You’re going to get to the point where they’re going to want to get their material that way. But right now, there’s a content issue: you just can’t get enough of it online, and it’s too expensive. This is sort of lengthening the curve of where book sales are going to go.”

Todd Anderson
Bookstore Director

Ryan Heise gives you an early look at the U of A Bookstore’s shiny new toy, and how it’s changing the face of the publishing industry.

Photos by Mike Otto Tuesday, 6 November 2007

Todd Anderson stands at the end of an automated assembly line waiting for another paperback book to slide through the slot of a clear, polycarbonate box. A copy of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, an 1884 novella by Edwin Abbott Abbott, is currently being trimmed to perfect dimensions by a large, pneumatic cutting blade.

“I can’t believe we pulled this off,” Anderson, director of the U of A Bookstore, says to me over whispered bursts of hydraulics. With the distinct smell of laser printers hanging in the air, the perfectly bound soft-cover book slides into the hands of a fellow employee, and a look of satisfaction beams from Anderson’s face.

Situated along the north wall on the lower level of the Bookstore is the $140 000 (US) Espresso Book Machine (EBM)—a monolithic yet clean-looking device consisting of four black-and-white laser printers, a single colour laser printer, and a series of belts, cogs, hydraulics, and electronics in clear cases. It’s as complex as it sounds, but it closer resembles a microcosm of Fordist mass production than a Rube Goldberg device. All you need to know is that it can churn out a perfect, 550-page book in two minutes flat.

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