Toolemera Blog

The Wiki Book Arrives

2012-01-26T18:14:47-05:00

My custom copy of the Wiki entry on Peter Nicholson arrived today. Sure enough, it comes from Lightning Source. Apparently there is a POD service for non-ISBN books which bears some checking out. It's nice enough, but let's say it's a bit padded at 22 pages of content and 12 pages of blank nothing. The blank pages are to bring the book up to the minimum needed for the smallest perfect bound size allowable, 34 double sided pages. No notice of who wrote the Wiki entry. Just a note saying this is public data and you're on your own. For...

2 Blogs On Books

2012-01-24T21:44:38-05:00

1. Library Preservation 2. Future Of The Book They're not what you might think they are. Or, perhaps they are what you think they are. You won't know until you visit each to find out what each writer is thinking.

RSS Feeds, Catherine Kennedy and Razor Straps

2012-01-23T22:42:44-05:00

No, there is no direct connection between the three topics. Catherine can rest easy on that one. The RSS feeds for the Shop and the primary site are in the process of rolling into one. If you visit the Toolemera home page you'll see the all purpose email link sign up in the right hand column. There's a similar but less flashy text link encased in the Shop pages. I've added the box top for a Charles Emerson Celebrated Razor Strap at the Museum. Here's a small image. A rather larger one is available at the Museum section of the...

Why You Can't Trust WikiPedia

2012-01-23T13:21:58-05:00

I've been doing some fact checking on PediaPress and came upon the most glaring factoid right away. Smack dab in the middle of their WikiPedia entry it states that "PediaPress has contracted with Lightning Source, a subsidiary of Ingram Industries, to print the books". I can't find a PediaPress book with an ISBN. Lightning Source requires an ISBN to print a book. Furthermore, it costs a fair amount of money to set up and print even one copy of a book through Lightning Source. But still, you need an ISBN. There are services out there that allow publishers to do...

The Wiki Wrinkle In The POD Book Scam Story

2012-01-21T16:48:55-05:00

Direct from email to blog: Hi Gary, I thought you might be interested in a recent book purchase experience of mine. In pursuing my hobby of collecting books on leathercraft/work, I bought a book on Ebay titled: “Facts on Leather” by William James Leach, editor, published by PediaPress. I hadn’t seen it before, and thought for a couple of dollars it would expand my collection, and maybe have an interesting fact about leather I did not know already. On receipt, I leafed through it and had this deja vu feeling that I had seen the content before, which I had....

Spiffying It Down

2012-01-19T19:53:32-05:00

And on the other hand, some things have got to go. The Hand Tool Makers website is no more. The planned sub-domain for Authors is now un-planned along with what was going to be Tool Makers, which would have morphed from Hand Tool Makers. Time and energy dictate the conservation of energy, or so someone postulated or something. I've removed those sites and site elements which largely became search targets rather than reader visit points, bringing the focus once again back to books and ephemera. There has also been a rise in informational requests regarding print on demand publishing from...

Spiffying It Up

2012-01-19T19:06:17-05:00

I signed up for the Typepad Design Consultation Service to get some help in fixing up a few design elements of this blog, notably the banner and perhaps some content elements. The goal: bring the websites and the blog into some sort of sync with each other. Poor Typepad Design. They like to get their hands into a blog and really go to town. You can see some of their Portfolio examples here. Not exactly my cuppa sleepy time tea. My CSS and HTML/XML skills are so rusty even a vinegar bath wouldn't help, so it's off to get some...

Blog, Interrupted

2012-01-19T10:30:41-05:00

True, I stole the title from a movie which stole the title from a book. As a direct result of a large number of offline comments, I've elected to ditch, remove, delete, throw out, evaporate and otherwise begone with a number of blog posts which relate to Chris Schwarz, Lost Art Press and some aspects of Popular Woodworking. Anything book review related stays. Why? S'truth, there's about an even match of naysayers, moderates and supporters. Sort of like the national elections this year. There are also a fair number of offline emails from people asking for background information or to...