The Espresso "On Demand" Book Machine Produces Books

In April 2006 the first experimental beta Espresso Book Machine was installed at the World Bank InfoShop in Washington, D.C. to print and bind World Bank publications on demand.

"In September 2006 ODB installed a second beta machine at The Library of Alexandria, Egypt, to print books in Arabic. The first EBM Version 1.5 was introduced for ninety days at the New York Public Library during the summer of 2007."

In September 2008 the first Espresso Book Machine in a retail commercial setting was installed at Angus & Robertson in Melbourne, Australia.

♦ Link to the PDF brochure for Espresso Book Machine 2.0 at ondemandbooks.com, accessed 08-31-2009.

♦ In November 2012 it was my pleasure to see the Espress Book Machine in operation at the privately owned Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Humorously nicknamed "Paige M. Gutenborg," the machine produced remarkably high quality paperback books at the speed of around 5 minutes per book. Customers supplied fully formatted black and white text as a PDF plus a separate PDF containing their design for a full color cover. The machine combined a double-sided xerographic laser printer with an ingenious binding and trimming mechanism. It printed the text on regular book paper and the color cover on coated cover stock. Since the binding machine was enclosed in plexiglass it was possible to observe the various binding processes, concluding with the machine dropping each finished copy out a small chute. When I watched the machine in operation it was being observed by a human operator.  My impression was that the machine required certain adjustments and worked best when "supervised" by a human.