One Espresso, please

Machines are printing out-of-copyright books now, on demand and for a nominal fee (compared to buying an original copy, if you can find one).

In December I will be visiting family in Michigan, and I may just have to swing the car westbound to visit a university library in Ann Arbor. You see, I'm quite eager to buy a book from their new machine. I want to get it home and see how it looks on my bookshelf (before I start lending it out).

Why will the print-on-demand book be so unique to my bookcase? It won't really. But each book has a history of how it arrived in my world, and I find the autonomy that these machines provide rather interesting.

Speaking of the machines, apparently Canada beat the US to the punch on putting this machine in an educational institution; they decided to put their machine in a university bookstore instead of a library.

Competition will crop up for the US-made Espresso, however. An Australian company says they will enter the market at some point.