Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)

[neon_jellyfish]

Oh gods, she's far too adorable!! /squees all over:

re: Orlock - honestly I've seen it spelt both ways, but that form seems to reflect the pronunciation in English.

Also, I have a question - I noticed that English speakers spell Orlok as Orlock with 'c'. Why is that? Is that how he's spelled in English subtitles for Nosferatu?

  Ermm... no, with the "c" is actually a mis-spelling. Out of habit for those of us who are accustomed to American English spelling.
Pretty little pink and purple (well, lavender, maybe) princess! Welcome to the latest addition to your dolly crew!

Thank you both! And thank you for solving the Orlock mystery for me!

I love the idea of a doll being the guardian of good memories from a happy time in your life.  And how cool to have these old books in good shape; they can truly be treasures.
Interesting read about "book culture".  With the thoughts about inventing more durable & lasting ways to preserve our words, I thought about how now we're leaning in the opposite direction again, with so many things being digital that will vanish into the ether with the electronic apocalypse... or just once the technology changes... or your computer crashes
I think next week's "Nova" on PBS is going to be about the history of writing.  Dunno if you can see that program there, but you might be interested.

Your doodle is so cute.  I really want to see this little guy in an ongoing comic strip too!  I am sure if you can come up with all the complexities of Oddwickshire, you could create some adventures for him.
Congrats on your new lil girl escaping customs!

Digital book culture is a very fascinating thing to watch, we didn't really have anything like that in the past. But I wouldn't necessarily say we're leaning away from physical books, it's more that the bookversum is getting broader. There are books that are digital only, but they probably wouldn't come out in physical form in the past, they wouldn't be published at all. As for physical books, we're making more of them than ever before, and the e-book boom didn't really slow down the publication of classic books. What's more threatening to preservation of books and their contents is declining quality of the craft.

That's not a book-specific problem, all fields of production suffer from this. The methods and materials for high quality products are there, some better than ever, but the mass market dictates low prices, and corners are being cut everywhere you look. From quality of paper to sewing to covers, everything is being done as cheaply as possible, even some so-called collector editions. And the whole idea of paperbacks is to be cheap and accessible, not necessarily lasting.

The worst thing about today's paperbacks is that they're printed too close to edges, so when they fall apart, you can't rebind them without burrying the text in the binding. There's a method for repairing torn bifolia, and it can, technically, be used for paperbacks, but it was never invented to be used on every single sheet of paper the book has, it makes for a too bulky spine while the foredge is still pretty thin, and that's not good, because then it's easy for dust and mold to get in the sewing and the cover doesn't fit properly and - uh, sorry.

I like having digital and cheaply bound books as an option, because they allow for publishing things that wouldn't otherwise make the cut. As long as we also produce high-quality bindings of important books, too. The overall cheapening is worrying, but I also noticed some very nice high quality books coming out lately, I think that the interest in good books not only content-wise, but also craft-wise, is slowly rising.

Another great thing about digital books is increased accessibility of books, especially some that would be hard to get your hands on nowadays. I love Project Guttenberg, for example. So many older and more obscure works that aren't in print and libraries only have a few copies, or none at all (Czech libraries don't have a LOT of things). When people can read old classics for free like that, they might be more willing to try it out and maybe discover something valuable in the process.

Also, a lot of old books are falling apart, and digitalisation of those helps their conservation - we can study the text without putting any strain on the binding, and we can make reproductions using the digital files. While nothing digital seems to be able to outlast physical books (our oldest still legible ones are cca 2000 years old, CD/DVD/BDs start going bad after a few years), it can help in their conservation, which is awesome.

And thank you!

And sorry for another rant!

Your pink girl is amazing!

Thank you!


Day 261

This precious book isn't visually stunning, but it's an amazing book nonetheless. It's a late 60s textbook for vocational bookbinding schools (that's an Eastern Europe thing, and I know Germany has these, but I don't know about other countries. Pretty sure the US don't have them. Here, you go to elementary school when you're 6, you finish when you're 15, and one of secondary education options you have after that is vocational school, where vast majority classes consist of skills you'll need for that specific vocation, and there are only a few general classes like languages and math. Bookbinding as a craft is traditionally taught in these, the college majors are more focused on the art side of things). It's a hardcover textbook with 430 pages. Awesome. I never had textbooks like that, mine were all thin paperbacks, one for each year or semester. This one was meant to be used from the start to the end of your studies.

It's a wonderful book with very detailed and clear instructions. It covers both hand-binding and industrial machine-binding (back then, even machine-binding involved a lot of work done by hand).



EDIT: Ooooh, page 100!

[werepuppy]

Ooh, that looks fantastic, the way that Lizzie sort of towers over the book.

Also that is a fascinating lesson on bookbinding and the idea of one textbook to last you the entire length of your studies. I ... kind of wish it was like that for more things, actually.

[davidd]

This post piqued my curiosity, so I wasted invested some time on line researching book-binding schools in the United States. There are several schools in the U.S., most of which are independently run, that offer at least a few courses in bookbinding. The most common programs seem to be short-duration seminars or crafts classes. I found one school, the American Academy of Bookbinding, that offers non-accredited diploma programs in bookbinding.

In the States, bookbinding seems to be looked upon more as a traditional craft than as an industrial trade.

[neon_jellyfish]

Ooh, that looks fantastic, the way that Lizzie sort of towers over the book.

Also that is a fascinating lesson on bookbinding and the idea of one textbook to last you the entire length of your studies. I ... kind of wish it was like that for more things, actually.

Thank you!

Yeah, me too. The 'excuse' for our current textbooks is that when you buy a new one for each year, you get the most up to date materials, but it's bullcrap, because our school system is awfully slow at incorporating new things. When I was in elementary school, a lot of stuff was taught in the exact same way as when my parents were in elementary school. Up to date my arse.

This post piqued my curiosity, so I wasted invested some time on line researching book-binding schools in the United States. There are several schools in the U.S., most of which are independently run, that offer at least a few courses in bookbinding. The most common programs seem to be short-duration seminars or crafts classes. I found one school, the American Academy of Bookbinding, that offers non-accredited diploma programs in bookbinding.

In the States, bookbinding seems to be looked upon more as a traditional craft than as an industrial trade.

Oh, I worded it badly (to be honest, I don't like my English today, but... booktalk!), I didn't mean the US don't have bookbinding courses, I meant that type of vocational school. The type where you go for professional training on secondary education level and it's like a high school, but for a specific job.

Here, link. To be honest, I find it confusing. All those different things being called college make it messy.

Bookbinding as a trade is in decline, too, mass-production doesn't really involve hand-binding anymore, but you can still find small binderies that do stuff like binding magazines into books for collectors, binding diploma theses, restore damaged books (not valuable antique ones, normal books), small stuff like that. There's not a lot of them, though.

[Lejays17]

She’s so cute, love that her hair & eyes match.

[Lejays17]

We had vocational schools here, there were two versions. One was the high school version, so from 12-ish until you left to start work (anywhere between 15 & 18), these were called Technical Schools, generally shortened to Tech.
These would have a general all around eduction, but focussed on practical things, eg woodwork or metalwork.

The others were called TAFEs (Technical & Further Eduction), these still exist, and are for the book learning side of a practical apprenticeship. So if you get an apprenticeship to become an electrician for example, you do the practical learning on the job, but 1 day a week / 1 week a month / some other schedule you go to school for the book learning side of things.

There was a change to everything about 30 or so years ago (techs were still there when I finished high school, but not when my youngest sister did 6 years later), where they decided that book learning was more important than practical learning, and closed/ absorbed most of them.
So there’s a couple of generations of young adults who quit school early because they weren’t “smart” enough for the book learning it focussed on, but would have thrived in the tech school model. My nephew being one. He is fortunate though, his dad is a shop fitter / cabinet maker, so he apprenticed to do that.

[davidd]

Oh, I worded it badly (to be honest, I don't like my English today, but... booktalk!), I didn't mean the US don't have bookbinding courses, I meant that type of vocational school. The type where you go for professional training on secondary education level and it's like a high school, but for a specific job.

You worded it precisely and accurately. I knew exactly what you meant, which prompted my search. I fear I did not word my response as clearly as I should have.

I know that book-binding courses exist here in the U.S., mostly aimed at the hobbyist market. I have known people who have taken book-binding courses, and who create lovely journals with elaborate covers. What I was looking for was exactly what you describe: vocational or degree programs in the book-binding trade. And for that, I found only one, the American Academy of Bookbinding, which appears to teach the "nuts and bolts" of industrial bookbinding, the artisan craft of custom book-binding, and old book conservation and restoration.

Sadly, the school is currently closed due to You Know What. Their web site states that they hope to re-open in 2021.

I am now taking more time to look at the photo a second time at greater length. It is very impressive, almost spooky! I love it!

[Alliecat]

I am glad e-books didn't slow down "real" books. If I was going to sail around the world and couldn't pack much, I'd want an e-book library, I guess. Otherwise, forget it. I love real books.
I was thinking of all the content that is only created digitally; some of it is crap but some might be hidden treasure, and it would be nice if it was more permanent.
It is nice that older books can be digitized though... I have a seaman's manual on hurricanes from the 1800s. They were just starting to understand how hurricanes worked, so it was interesting to read the "theories". Crossing the Atlantic, I had a chance to browse through a "real" edition of it, then found a digitized later revision afterwards at home. (Also in my Google-Books finds from that research period is a surgical manual from the 1790s. Eek. The fact that they were trying to do cataract surgery at that time is horrifying to me (although the section on trepanning was useful ))
Cheap accessible paperbacks... yeah, it's true that some are badly produced and don't last at ALL. Insert long rant about how almost no one knows how to properly open a book spine nowadays. I show people now & then at the library. I've met maybe 2 or 3 people, ever, who already knew. So many books get thrown away from our collection because the kids are hard on them and nobody's opened them properly. Pages falling out in no time. I seem to be the book-repair person; they'll leave them for me to try to salvage, some of the time. I hate to see them thrown away. So wasteful.

Lizzie looks like she's got a huge book full of great and magical wisdom there.

[Elfy]

I really like the way you’ve posed this and it makes Lizzie look very regal.

[davidd]

Insert long rant about how almost no one knows how to properly open a book spine nowadays.  I show people now & then at the library.  I've met maybe 2 or 3 people, ever, who already knew. 

When I was in elementary school, probably first grade, the teacher took our class to the library to learn how to open a new book properly. Each of the students was given a brand new paperback book, and we followed along as the librarian demonstrated the proper way to open a book for the first time. I have always remembered that lesson, and on the rare occasion that I open a new book for the first time, I make sure to follow the steps we were taught.

It's true: education was better in "the olden days."  

[neon_jellyfish]

So much interesting discussion here, but I'm too dead to respond properly, sorry guys! For the weather it is a-changin'. Again.

And thank you very much for your comments!


Day 262

"Come play with us, neon! Forever, and ever, and ever..."
"Coming!"

[werepuppy]

Ahhhh!! I keep flailing with how cute these two are. I would love to play with them for ever LOL.

[davidd]

No surprise that they're evil twins luring you in to their dark netherworld. Resist! Resist!

[Elfy]

I”m with Davidd, they look sweet and innocent, but that’s just baiting the hook.

[Loona]

Ah, they are adorable, and their pastel colours are pure eyecandy! It's a good thing they aren't around, I would be weak and would give in to them easily too - which, considering home office and the resulting fact that I should often be working when I'm at home, would eventually result in uncomfortable talks with my boss...