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Far from plotting a course for the digital renewal of publishing as we know it, O鈥橪eary paused, and suggested that 鈥� will not accrue to the incumbents.鈥� The inertia of business-as-usual and unfliching faith in publishers鈥� traditional role stands in the way of the traditional industry鈥檚 capacity to serve a new 鈥渘etwork publishing鈥� that is driven by what customers already want, and what they can already themselves do.

The inadequacy of current approaches to digital technology in publishing was underscored dramatically later that morning by , Manager of 鈥楨merging Identifiers鈥� at Bowker. Dawson鈥檚 talk, 鈥�,鈥� began by noting a 3600% increase in the number of active ISBNs in Bowker鈥檚 database in the past decade or so鈥攏ot merely because it is easier and easier to create and publish new material, but also because 鈥渨ith the web, nothing goes away 鈥� it only accumulates.鈥� So the current industry obsession with 鈥済etting metadata right鈥� (something with which Dawson herself has been instrumental in recent years), while noble, is just not going to cut it:

In a rapidly of 鈥渃ontainerless, abundant, persistent content,鈥� Dawson argued, 鈥渢he only way to instill any order or sense on this information overload鈥� is to create links in it.鈥� That is to say, the old model of data and business management, to catalogue and gain top-down control of information and data flows, is not going to be enough. The only model we have for dealing with the kind of abundance the Web brings is the Web itself.

鈥淐reating links in it鈥� opened the way to a half-dozen sessions over the two days that probed the problems presented by the current notion of ebooks as hermetically sealed containers for content. , who 鈥渨rote the book鈥� on creating ebooks (along with a long, long string of computer and digital publishing books over the years), spoke eloquently about the virtues of creating ebook content in small, timely, modular offerings rather than, er, monographs. 鈥� startup, unveiled a new business model for accessing and addressing specific content within ebooks, thereby allowing linking in and out of books. Mobnotate鈥檚 demoed a stunning algorithmically cross-indexed mash-up of Isaacson鈥檚 Steve Jobs biography with Steve Wozniak鈥檚 iWoz, allowing a reader to jump back and forth between the texts, topic-by topic.

of spoke on 鈥渙ur new reading habits鈥� in light of a decade of mass Web use鈥攈abits which now include the assumption of on-tap reference material like Wikipedia, mass-scale on-tap image libraries (provided by Flickr, Google, Tumblr, etc.), and ubiquitous mapping and location-aware services. We expect these in our reading experiences, she argued, so where are they in the books we read? Syman鈥檚 鈥渞eading habits鈥� was echoed the second day by 鈥檚 plea for a recognition of 鈥渞eal readers鈥� rather than the industry鈥檚 notions of the (platonic) idealized reader.

The bons mots on the notion of escaping from the self-contained ebook came from GG-winning novelist and hypermedia author , who coined a term: 鈥渕y digital fiction projects have succeeded at least in part because they are spreadable.鈥� Pullinger also evocatively acknowledged the parallel 鈥渋nfluence of and .鈥� Nice pairing.

Lightweight tools and workflows

A second major theme was kicked off first thing Thursday morning by 鈥檚 championing of what he called 鈥渟ubcompact publishing鈥� in contrast with the heavy, expensive attempts of the magazine industry love affair with the first wave of iPad apps. Mod spoke of the power of simple markup, small files, and miminalist UI.

鈥淟ightweight markup鈥� proved to be a recurring theme, alluded to by many a presenter. A thorough treatment was provided by O鈥橰eilly Media鈥檚 , who outlined the company鈥檚 new 鈥楢tlas鈥� workflow, a system front-ended by the -like as an authoring environment. My own session, 鈥�,鈥� followed Witwer鈥檚, taking more of a historical perspective. But the best quote on the topic came from Safari Books鈥� : 鈥淎uthoring tools need to become invisible. Nobody鈥檚 going to learn your markup language.鈥�

Late in the afternoon of the first day, (formerly of Enhanced Editions) gave a passionate address-鈥淔ailure is an Option鈥濃�攊n which he provided something of a bookend to Brian O鈥橪eary鈥檚 fading optimism moment from the morning. Collingridge lamented Publishing鈥檚 tragic lack of agility (my word, not his), and the 鈥渟oul-crushing鈥� experience of trying to introduce real innovation, digital marketing, and data-driven decision making into traditional publishing environments. He quoted one of his investors as saying, 鈥淭urkeys don鈥檛 vote for Christmas鈥濃�攁nd then Mark Zuckerberg: 鈥渢he only strategy guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.鈥� Collingridge is with Safari Books now.

Books in Browsers is known for showcasing mind-blowing new stuff, and this year was no exception. In roughly chronological order:

Ben Moskovitz from Mozilla showed , an HTML5 platform and javascript library that demonstrated how video and text are鈥攑ractically, now鈥攐f the same stuff and can be treated somewhat interchangeably. Popcorn is capable of some pretty cool transcription/video interaction; the most amazing was the possibility of editing video clips by editing their transcripts. Text and other media are not separate realities anymore.

& nearly pulled off a live demo of real-time voice-recognition+live editing+twitter-commentary (got all that?) in a . In a sense, this showed a flip-side of Ben Moskovitz鈥檚 Popcorn presentation, this time with voice recognition providing the core text which is edited and added to by a number of people collaborating in real time鈥攚hat they called 鈥渄istributed marginalia.鈥� The future is so much more collaborative (and effortless) than we generally imagine. Workflow becomes radically parallelized; 鈥淎ll the world鈥檚 an editor.鈥�

& unveiled their new project, , which is a whole new way to look at editorial that harkens back to the way copyediting used to be done: with a red pen on a double-spaced hardcopy, and with the goal of conducting a conversation with an author. Poeti.ca recreates the red-line copyediting experience in a web page, with the benefits of the Web: shareable, collaborative, in real time, with multiple participants. The presentation provoked astonished gasps as the people in the room recognized an older model of editing, where the text is encountered apart from the writing environment that produced it, and where the careful consideration of the words creates an ongoing dialogue between author and editor, a relationship based on communication and trust. By putting this model in the browser, the old meets the new. 鈥淓veryone writes鈥� everyone edits,鈥� says Maureen, opening up a whole new mode for web participation. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e trying to create is a sense of joy.鈥�

The last mind-blower for me was Adam Hyde鈥檚 , presented in the guise of a talk on collaboration in writing. Hyde is perhaps best known for the 鈥溾�� idea, where a group of people get together to write a book (often an educational text) in a matter of a few days. What I didn鈥檛 know was that underneath that phenomenon is a growing collection of open-source tools鈥攁n entire platform, really鈥攆or publishing. Near the end of his talk, he very quickly demoed a book typesetting system that runs in the browser, in Javascript. Here, truly, are books in browsers: not just for reading on screens, but potentially all of a book production process happening within the Web鈥檚 seemingly boundless horizon.

Is that enough?

That鈥檚 a small representation of the kind of sessions that went on in San Francisco in October. I cannot, however, begin to represent BiB12 without also talking about the physical location. In sharp contrast with the typical darkened hotel conference space hung with heavy velvet curtains, BiB took place at the , a converted Christian Science church. The church鈥檚 huge square hall features a domed ceiling and massive panes of golden glass on the sides, and the warm light shining through on the assembled audience was nothing short of glorious. How could one fail to be optimistic about the future of books in such a place? The Internet Archive also proved to be a great conference host, with live music in the interstitial times in the schedule, lunch out on the wide stone steps leading to Funston St, and the ever-present hum of the Archive鈥檚 servers. I must also acknowledge the little people鈥攖he Terracotta Archivists鈥攚ho filled the pews on either side of the room. I could go on鈥� but I鈥檒l leave it at that.

Some Takeaways

The zeitgeist of BiB12, if I can speak for it at all, is about moving on. Brian O鈥橪eary鈥檚 claim that 鈥渢he opportunity in abundance will not accrue to the incumbents鈥� means that change鈥攁nd the future of books and publishing鈥攍ikely won鈥檛 come from within the established industry, but from beyond it, and beside it, and amidst it. The people assembled at BiB12 are all pretty close to publishing; many are ex-insiders, many are entrepreneurs working with publishers, and a good number represent newer, mostly smaller-scale publishing firms.

(obstensibly citing me, though I don鈥檛 recall saying it this well) that we witnessed a 鈥渢ranscendence of contemporary publishing鈥� not trying to repair or modernize publishing, but 鈥� designing new solutions for a world in which storytelling takes advantage of networked tools for sharing insights and art.鈥� That sums it up pretty well for me. I see this not as a turning away from the traditions, the craft, the art of books and publishing, but a moving beyond.

In a later follow-up post, Laura Dawson wrote of 鈥溾�濃�攊nvoking Deleuze as well as her own garden鈥斺�渢aking the rhizomes of what we know鈥攕torytelling, expression, documentation, encoding, promulgation鈥攁nd breaking them up, replanting them in a different way.鈥� That sounds like what BiB was about this year.

I will end with my favourite quote of the conference, from Blaine Cook (while onstage with Poeti.ca):