Hi all,
I did a bit of a review of the big four bird guides for birdforum and one subject I touched on was what the books are printed on. Simpson and Day has a waterproof cover under the dustjacket and waterproof end papers, while Slater and Morcombe have plastic sleeves (Pizzey doesn’t appear to have any waterproofing), but why stop there? Reading about CSIRO’s nascent field guide, I wonder if they would entertain the idea of using similar paper for the book as they use for Australian bank notes – you’d have a guide that would be completely waterproof and that much more useful in the field as well as more resistant to normal wear and tear. Just an idea. Cheers,
Tony
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Based on those figures, it should be possible to produce an Australian field guide for around AUD 60-70. I would pay that for a field-proof field guide.
Carl Clifford
The cost of any book is considerably more than the paper stock alone – even if the paper were double the cost, the book would not show such a proportionate increase. The comparison between waterproof paper and office paper is also pretty far off as a book printed on office paper wouldn’t last ten minutes in the field. Pizzey is (at a guess) around 120 gms silk stock, which is quite a bit more expensive than printer paper. Not only that, to buy the stuff is considerably more than a printer would be charged. Here’s a link to a waterproof field guide: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Upland-Waterfowl-Wilderness-Adventures/dp/1885106203/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295083167&sr=1-12 120 pages, waterproof paper, colour printing, only US$13.95 (or US $19.99 full price). Again, the argument of scaling to Pizzey’s 580 pages doesn’t hold as a large part of the cost is mark-up. Printing costs wouldn’t be that greatly increased. Another example: http://www.amazon.com/Coral-Reef-Guide-Red-Sea/dp/0007159862/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295083574&sr=1-17 1200 species of fish on 280 pages, only US$28.84. One last one – a cookbook at 208 pages, all waterproof for only US$24 http://www.amazon.com/Guide-New-American-Kitchen/dp/1595910131/ref=sr_1_55?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295083841&sr=1-55 It’s starting to look like an economically feasible idea. Cheers,
Tony
The cost of any book is considerably more than the paper stock alone – even if the paper were double the cost, the book would not show such a proportionate increase. The comparison between waterproof paper and office paper is also pretty far off as a book printed on office paper wouldn’t last ten minutes in the field. Pizzey is (at a guess) around 120 gms silk stock, which is quite a bit more expensive than printer paper. Not only that, to buy the stuff is considerably more than a printer would be charged. Here’s a link to a waterproof field guide: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Upland-Waterfowl-Wilderness-Adventures/dp/1885106203/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295083167&sr=1-12 120 pages, waterproof paper, colour printing, only US$13.95 (or US$19.99 full price). Again, the argument of scaling to Pizzey’s 580 pages doesn’t hold as a large part of the cost is mark-up. Printing costs wouldn’t be that greatly increased. Another example: http://www.amazon.com/Coral-Reef-Guide-Red-Sea/dp/0007159862/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295083574&sr=1-17 1200 species of fish on 280 pages, only US$28.84. One last one – a cookbook at 208 pages, all waterproof for only US$24 http://www.amazon.com/Guide-New-American-Kitchen/dp/1595910131/ref=sr_1_55?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295083841&sr=1-55 It’s starting to look like an economically feasible idea. Cheers,
Tony
An article in today’s Good Weekend (The Age magazine) reckoned that the paper costs in the average book were $2 or less – so this could double the cost of a Pizzey.
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Good point, Tony. And for just double the current cost, you could buy two, and unbind one and put the pages you’re likely to be referring to on this trip into separate ziplock bags or plastic sleeves. I’m assuming that when people need to refer to a guide in the rain, that they’re just looking at a particular group of species, say waders or seabirds, so they wouldn’t need that many pages. You could laminate them and rebind them to make your own “Slater’s Waders”, etc.
Peter Shute
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My only question is whether I would want to carry an I-pad/Kindle with me in the field (and the associated chargers) along with bins, ‘scope, tripod, camera, ………….
Tony Crittenden http://www.tcphotos.net tcphotosdotnet.blogspot.com Adelaide South Australia
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I’ll stick with the present type of book I think. At 445 each one could get 22.22 copies of Pizzey over time for $1000 – just replace them as they get too soggy to use.
Tony
Alas, most electronic devices are not terribly waterproof either – as I found out a couple of years ago when my water bottle leaked over my laptop!
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Given regular avian taxonomy changes, that’s probably a reasonable innings for a field guide. 😉
e-Ink viewers like the Kindle are certainly interesting technology, but until a high quality colour version is available paper-based books will be with us for some time yet.
Dave et al,
The German map & travel guide publishers Reise Know How, uses a water and rip-proof paper for their maps. I have also recently bough some maps of N Thailand from a small publisher, GT Rider, who use a similar paper for their maps. In both cases the colour printing is good, so the product is out there.
Perhaps the publishers are believers in the concept of built-in obsolescence. The average field guide only just manage to survive 2 complete drenchings.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
But probably not easy to write notes on – I know many people write details of their first sighting etc next to the bird. But apart from that could be useful for when visiting the wetter parts!
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I think the polymer used for the banknotes would be prohibitively expensive. I also think that the polymer used for the notes may be too thick (and perhaps too heavy). I notice that there is waterproof paper – which can be written on – but a quick check of the price of packets of waterproof A4 paper ($56 per 200 sheets or $140 per ream) compared to regular A4 paper ($6.30 per ream) shows that it is slightly more than 22 times the cost. This would mean that Pizzey ($45 from Andrew Isles) would probably retail at about $1000 in a waterproof edition – about three times the cost of a volume of HANZAB!
With the incredible take-off of electronic readers like Kindle, and of course the burgeoning revolution in tablet devices like the iPad, it may be that electronic delivery is the appropriate medium for the future?
Paul Dodd Docklands, Victoria
Any idea of the cost? And will it allow good colour reproduction?
Peter Shute
But probably not easy to write notes on – I know many people write details of their first sighting etc next to the bird. But apart from that could be useful for when visiting the wetter parts!
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