Instant books are coming to a library near you (if you live in Ann Arbor, Michigan)

It seems that the University of Michigan will be introducing technology that will allow individuals to request, and receive within minutes, printed and bound copies of digitized, out-of-copyright books for a reasonable price. Interestingly, the machine will be associated with the library, what this means I don't quite know.

While I won't go as far as the manufacturer of the technology and say that its impact will be comparable to that of Gutenberg's, I do think that it has the potential to do some pretty impressive things. I guess over time we will see if this type of technology manages to take-off, or it is a high-technology solution that problem that is less of a problem in the digital environment (that this technology is dependent on digitized works that are already available leads me to believe that this may be the case).

How can I read on after this?

In an article I was reading about William Caxton, the first person to print English language materials, the author suggested that most illiterate members of 15th century English society wouldn't have been able to read latin. As we are talking about illiterate people I think that we are on pretty safe ground with this assertion. Unfortunately, about a line later the author goes on to suggest that "the presence of latin lends authority in a way that would have discouraged pulling down Caxton's bill [poster] even among the ill-lettered."

For this to make sense we must be talking about the type of illiterates who, though they can't read, can distinguish between two different languages printed in the same (gothic) script. These individuals were then able to determine that because one of the languages present is latin that they shouldn't tear down the poster, which, had it been only in English, would have been the obvious action for most of them.

It is pretty hard to keep reading something after encountering such a train of thought.