Bob Stein Interview — May, 2007

Bob Stein is the director of the Institute for the Future of the Book. On May 22, 2007, Phil Shaprio caught up with him to chat about his work and ideas. Here’s a summary of their phone conversation.

The Institute for the Future of the Book experiments in new forms of intellectual discourse as it shifts from the printed page to the networked book. The Institute works on several concurrent projects and blogs about them on the Institute’s web site.

Work done by the Institute centers on enlarging the boundaries of books so that they can better include conversations. In what ways can books include margin notes by multiple readers of the book?

Since I work in a public library, I asked Bob about what future libraries are going to look like. He said that while it’s difficult to predict what libraries are going to look like, chances are good that physical libraries will take on more of a social function — that they’ll become more of a meeting place. Librarians will always be people who “know the terrain” and help guide community members through the terrain.

We next chatted about Sophie, a software tool being developed that will allow people to create elegant, rich-media networked documents. I asked Bob how Sophie compares with products like HyperCard (now discontinued) and HyperStudio, which is widely used in K-12 schools.

Bob explained that HyperCard is a meta-tool, and that Sophie is being designed more as a tool than a meta-tool. (A meta-tool is a tool for creating other tools.) Another example of a meta-tool is Macromedia Director, which has a steep learning curve. Currently 9 of the 14 staff members at the Institute for the Future of the Book are working on Sophie.

Bob then explained that he’s wondering how group inquiry will happen in the future. How will people in different cities connect to each other to pursue inquiry in a collaborative way? I mentioned to Bob that my smartest educator friends are big fans of the free Moodle course management system, which can also be used as a community organizing tool. Bob concurred that Moodle indeed can be used as a community organizing tool.

I asked Bob about his views on free software. He explained that he is neutral on the idea of free software — acknowledging the various meanings of the word free. He explained, “Somebody, somewhere needs to pay for software. In an ideal world, all the software tools we need would be available as part of the infrastructure of our society, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

I asked Bob which web browser he uses. He replied, “I use Flock, although I haven’t yet been using the social features that Flock was designed for. I don’t consider myself an early adopter. I tend to use tools that have been around for a year or more.”

We then chatted about the Creative Commons. Bob agreed that the Creative Commons is a step in the right direction, but feels it doesn’t go far enough and that it hasn’t yet encountered success. I didn’t get a chance to ask him what he would consider success. In my book the Creative Commons has encountered success, although on a modest scale. Change takes time.

I asked Bob whether he was familiar with the work of Robin Good, in Rome, Italy, investigating collaborative software tools on his web sites Kolabora and Master New Media. Bob told me he wasn’t familiar with Robin Good’s work and asked me to send contact information for Robin Good. I explained that I’m constantly learning useful things from Robin Good’s blog and from the videos he has been putting on YouTube.

Phil Shapiro

The interviewer works as the public geek at the Takoma Park Maryland Library. He spends his day helping youth and adults use the 28 Linux stations at the library and adjacent community center. He explains the Creative Commons to anyone who appears to have a creative bent.

His recent creative projects include a collaboratively produced, rich-media children’s story available in multiple languages, Sammy’s Autograph Book. He has also been exploring techniques for conducting video interviews over the Internet, in the style of a Charlie Rose interview, and techniques for composing collaborative folk songs using YouTube.

He ascribes his sense of mischief to his late father.

A more extended bio can be found here. He can be reached at pshapiro@his.com