On my flight from NC to TX yesterday (4th plane of the day) I sat next to a guy who happenned to also be going to SXSW. He was from New York, but had just given a talk at Duke. His name is Bob Stein and he works for a think tank focused on preserving books.
He is now sitting on this panel about book digitization, between the guy from Google Books and a woman from Microsoft who is developing a similar service. I’m just very glad he’s there as Bob is the only person up there who seems to not think that corporations making money or even surviving is the highest goal.
Bob is not getting much of a chance to talk, but the moderator Liz Lawley has made some good points as well.
Bob Stein was the principal in Voyager the best of the CD publishers before they were all blindsided by the WWW. I loved their CDs and even their early website. The catalog which was once voyagerco.com is now at http://www.bringyourbrain.com/
Stein’s Institute for the Future of the Book http://www.futureofthebook.org/ is very cool.
I wish I had caught his talk at Duke (I had a conflict). ibiblio alum Jesse Wilbur is working with Bob.