Thursday 27 April 2017

'Screen fatigue' sees UK ebook sales plunge 17% as readers return to print

Britons are abandoning the ebook at an alarming rate with sales of consumer titles down almost a fifth last year, as “screen fatigue” helped fuel a five-year high in printed book sales. Sales of consumer ebooks plunged 17% to £204m last year, the lowest level since 2011 – the year the ebook craze took off as Jeff Bezos’ market-dominating Amazon Kindle took the UK by storm. It is the second year running that sales of consumer ebooks – the biggest segment of the £538m ebook market, which fell 3% last year – have slumped as commuters, holidaymakers and leisure readers shelve digital editions in favour of good old fashioned print novels.
The Guardian (and also here)

Wednesday 26 April 2017

How to make your bookshelves beautiful

Whether you have few, or many books in your possession, the real trick is to arrange them in a way that is visually appealing as their contents. A tour of the most beautiful and beguiling bookcases to inspire your library-in-the-making.
More at Vogue

Monday 24 April 2017

Oddly bookshelf

This project started with the idea that household items such as furniture would be able to add energy to many people if they were designed to function in a new structure, beyond the static and tedious vertical and horizontal structure. At first, the position of the ball is variable according to the gradient. But when you put the book on the Oddly, the center of gravity is shifted to the right. And at this time, the ball rolls down to hold the book as a book stopper.
Materials: Brass & Black Walnut Wood
Youngmin Kang

ODDLY from Youngmin Kang on Vimeo.

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Wednesday 19 April 2017

Franz Kafka Society Center's rotating bookcase

All new partitioning in the building, even when carving out spaces for restrooms and a kitchenette, is created exclusively by book shelves. In one half of the building these bookshelves appear in white (offices) and the other half is filled with black bookshelves (entry hall). Coming from the central corridor one only sees black bookshelves and when coming from the offices one encounters white bookshelves. A 360-degree rotating door between the corridor and the director’s offices, black on one side and white on the other, reverses white to black.
Marcela Steinbachová (Skupina) and Steven Holl Architects 

Wednesday 12 April 2017

Tuesday 11 April 2017

Borges's Library of Babel in Sketchup

I was thinking about the Borges story The Library of Babel and I got to wondering whether anyone had done any decent renderings of it.
Full story at JWZ  via Boing Boing

Monday 10 April 2017

Historic Book Odour Wheel: The smell of books

The historic book odour wheel is a new tool that combines the chemical and sensory aspects of the odour experience and can be considered a preliminary piece in an archival method for heritage smells. It has the potential to be used as a diagnostic tool by conservators, informing on the condition of the object through its olfactory profile. In terms of visitor experience and interpretation, the olfactory experience in museums, both as a communication strategy and as an art form, could contribute to improved learning, to a more personal connection to the exhibits and an increased overall enjoyment.
More at Heritage Science Journal,  by Cecilia Bembibre and Matija Strlič
Pictured above, odour wheel of historic book containing general aroma categories, sensory descriptors and chemical information on the smells as sampled (colours are arbitrary)
“Chocolate”, “cocoa’” or “chocolatey” were the most frequent words used to describe the smell of a copy of French writer Bernard Gasset’s 1928 novel Les Chardons du Baragan, followed by “coffee”, “old”, “wood” and “burnt”.
More at The Guardian

Friday 7 April 2017

Charles Dickens’s reading desk

"Distinct from any podium or lectern, Dickens had this reading desk specially crafted to fit his needs on stage. First among these alterations was Dickens's request that the desk be constructed as an open box, without side walls obstructing the audience’s full view of the speaker. This innovation would have been necessary for one of Dickens’s live readings, as he relied heavily on full-body gestures and movement in order to bring his beloved characters to life."
More at Charles Dickens Museum

Thursday 6 April 2017

Concave bookcase

This inspired piece by Simon Pengelly is a response to our need for bookcases to house a plethora of items that differ vastly in shape and size. It is produced in two halves and can be used as such or joined as one whole piece. Made with solid oak. Available also in walnut.
Joined and Jointed and Simon Pengelly

Wednesday 5 April 2017

François-Rupert Carabin erotic walnut bookcase goes on show

An extraordinary erotic bookcase has been lent for display outside Paris for the first time, in an exhibition on French Belle Époque prints at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. Designed by François-Rupert Carabin, it is surmounted by three female nudes modelled from prostitutes recruited at Montmartre brothels.
The Art Newspaper

Tuesday 4 April 2017

Scandinavian animal mascot shelf bookcase

Size:136cm x 149.5cm x48cm
Material: birch wood composite board
Color: walnut, ash, birc
Weight: 22kg
AliExpress

Monday 3 April 2017

On the philosophical implications of shelving books

"A system of organization, whatever its parameters, should render case-by-case choices obsolete: A book either is or is not a true-crime thriller, does or does not contain fiction, was or was not written by Agatha Christie. But in practice, every organizational schema is a doomed attempt to blanket chaos with order, and only more so the grander its ambitions. It may be possible to draw a sensible line delineating science from nature, art from design, autobiography from memoir, or war history from American history from Native American history, but to do so is to suggest that any one exists independently from the other. The clear lines bleed and become wobbly."
More at LitHub