Print on demand machine in Blackwell's bookshop

The arcadia@cambridge Project talk on 3rd May was Ed Chamberlain talking about print on Demand. In Blackwells Charing Cross bookshop there is a print on demand service. You can take in any out of print book or send a pdf and they turn it into a book for you using the Espresso Book Machine® (the "EBM") . The service costs about £15 per book.

I remembering David McKitterick explaining this technology ten years ago so it is interesting that it has taken ten years to filter onto our highstreets and even now it does not seem to be very cost effective for the bookseller: it was pointed out that Blackwells have not rolled the service out to any of their other stores, and that Charing Cross location is a unique one as the service appeals to publishers who often use it to print off twenty copies or so of a book. We all sat amazed as we watched a video showing how the EBM went through all the processes of creating a book. Ed's project discussed the implications of this for Libraries: the copyright, staffing and outset cost issues were much more constricting than the technical issues involved, and there were quality control issues involved too.

Presumably the podcast and 61 page report will soon appear on the arcadia@cambridge project website.
Several things struck me:

1) How clever and creative the Arcadia fellows are and what a valuable project this is.
2)All morning I was mulling over whether or not this was a feasible way for a University library in the future. The fact that I was mulling over it suggests that it probably is quite a feasible path to follow (even if Ed was quite conservative about it himself.) The cost of copies seems irrelevent considering the setup costs, which were probably not unlike the costs of running any other library department. Users will prefer this to having to sit in a rare books room or (if a network were set up) waiting a week or two while a physical copy crosses the country or indeed ocean. Possibly fewer physical items need be stored. I think this an important element of the way Libraries will work in future.