Page 29 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

iting, images, design, prepress, and distribution of nearly all books issued in printed or digital form. Some printed books are, of course, also output on digital presses, in those cases making even physical book production a digital process, except for paper and binding, and confirming the merger of digital and physical media.
An example of an artifact formerly primarily associated with print evolv- ing to digital in an amazing way was the June 1, 2009 cover art of the New Yorker print magazine created entirely on an iPhone. Reflecting the growth in digital book production, in 2010 Thomson-Shore (now Sheridan Books), one of the best-known short-run book printers in the United States, began offering eBook conversion services to its clients, assisting them in moving traditional printed books to eBook formats.
As more and more information became digital, one of the roles of the main libraries at universities, beyond serving as repositories for printed informa- tion, became managing Internet gateways to both free and subscriber-only paid electronic information. Though the amount of free information, or ad- vertiser-supported information on the Internet may appear overwhelming, we often forget about the vast amount that is subscriber-only or otherwise restricted access that specialists require. But if users, including those affili- ated with universities and research centers, can access so much information without leaving their desks how many will actually enter physical libraries? On my visits to university and city libraries in recent years I noticed that in addition to their traditional roles as research and study centers, some be- came meeting places, with such facilities as coffee shops, reflective of their newer, non-traditional usage.
In spite of the explosion of digital information, a significant percentage of books and periodicals are still published in print only, rather than in digital form. Besides that, even though scans of many books published only in print are technically available online, copyright restrictions often prevent more than the “snippet view” access, making reading the online versions highly frustrating, and driving the student toward the physical book held in the physical library. These access restrictions are lifted for digital books,
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