Just strip off the formatting codes from these books and we have access.

kelly

from the New York Times
      June 4, 1998


      NEWS WATCH

A High-Tech Rescue for Out-of-Print Books

      By KATIE HAFNER

     A t the Book Expo America show in Chicago this week, the most
     popular attraction by far was a new technology for on-demand book
     printing. Lightning Print, a division of Ingram, a book wholesaler,
     hauled its entire operation to Chicago to demonstrate the new
     process, which uses state-of-the-art I.B.M. printing equipment and
     software.

     When a title goes out of print or demand for a book falls so low
     that publishers hesitate to reprint it, in steps Lightning.

     "Books really never have to go out of print again," said Larry
     Brewster, Lightning Print's general manager. "For $100 to $150, you
     set the book up in the digital library, and books can be printed as
     booksellers order them." A 300-page book costs about $5 to print
     after the initial setup, he said.

     Once Ingram receives an order for even one book from a bookseller,
     Lightning prints the book at the Ingram headquarters in La Vergne,
     Tenn., and ships it to one of three major distribution centers.

     A 300-page book takes about 30 seconds to print, and the books
     don't have to be printed in batches. Out comes Freeman Dyson's
     "Disturbing the Universe" one minute, and "The Collected Stories of
     Phillip K. Dick" the next.

     The books are expected to sell for $15 to $20 apiece, Brewster
     said.

     At the book show, people were taken with the quality of the books,
     especially the covers. "Unless you were in the production business,
     you'd have a very difficult time telling the difference between
     these covers and offset printing," Brewster said.

     For now, the Lightning system prints only paperbacks, but Brewster
     said the company hoped to offer hardcover editions as well by the
     end of the year.

     Lightning recently finished a pilot project with 150 titles from
     three dozen United States publishers, like Random House and
     Princeton University Press.

     The company plans to have 10,000 titles in its digital library by
     the end of the year.

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                 Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company