Culture
Can On-Demand Printing Bolster Bookstores?
A old shop in Paris is holding onto its place in the city by embracing new technology.
In the digital age, bookstores aren’t going down without a fight—or at least, a small stroke of genius.
The Libraries des Puf—a shop in the Latin Quarter of Paris, run by University Press of France (or Les Puf)—has turned literary retail on its head by filling its space not paperback, but with a few sleek shelves and one large printer. The Espresso Book Machine, as it’s called, sits awaiting the customer’s request for a title, which it prints out within five minutes, The New York Times recently wrote. In that time, patrons sip coffee on nearby stools, or flip through the digital catalog of available books on tablets lining the shop.