Anyone who has had the need to visit one of Maryland’s Motor
Vehicle facilities is probably familiar
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short-story-dispenser-short-edition/
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with the overhead announcement, “Due to
high volume, there is an extended wait time.”
Rows and rows of seats, many of them occupied, sit in the middle
of a huge room. On the perimeter are information desks, with long lines formed
in front of each one. Large TVs hang on some of the walls. A snack vending
machine, drinking fountain and rest rooms are available to meet the needs of
those who wait.
In the Beltsville MVA, the Prince George’s County Memorial
Library System has introduced a Short Story Dispenser.[1]
The Short Story Dispenser was developed in France by a
start-up company called Short Edition. It was launched in the French Alps in
2015. It made its debut in the United States in Café Zoetrope in San Francisco.[2]
The innovative machines are black, shiny cylinders about as
tall as an upright vacuum cleaner. The orange top has buttons labeled “1,” “3”
and “5.” Push a button and a long strip of narrow paper emerges from the
machine, containing a story which should take one, three or five minutes to
read.
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An assortment of stories by more than 8,000 authors are
available.
“The library always wants to be part of the community,” said
Roberta Phillips, CEO of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System.
“We want people to be reading and exploring and learning. And this is another
vehicle for storytelling. What a great venue. There’s a lot of people here. We
hope this really gets used heavily by the customers here, and they, in turn,
want to come and visit the library.”[3]
Since the Short Story Dispenser taps into a database of over
100,000 titles, the selection doesn’t
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grow stale. Classics, published authors
and stories gleaned from writing competitions provide the content. There are
two categories: “young readers” and “everyone else.” The content is supplied by
the community publishing platform short-edition.com.
Although this is new to me, since over 8,000 authors have
contributed to the collection, it must be known to a fair number of people. I
intend to seek out a location which dispenses the stories and try it out
myself.
As Roberta Phillips says, “We want to be there for our
customers, and this…offers a great opportunity to get stories to people while
they have an extra minute to read. Push a button, get a story.”[5]
[1] Kelly,
J (April 1, 2019) At a Md. MVA, check out the tales from the Short Story
Dispenser, Washington Post
[2] Short
Story Dispenser (n.d.) Retrieved May 12, 2019 from https://cafezeotrope.com
[3]
Kelly, At a Md. MVA
[4]
Short Story Dispenser
[5] MDOT
MVA. (March 27, 2019) MDOT MVA and Prince George’s County Memorial Library
partner on free Short Story Dispenser (Press Release) Retrieved May 12, 2019 www.mva.maryland.gov/about-mva/press-releases/
A great idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to learn how the experiment works. Too bad you can't tap you phone to a port and get a story downloaded directly to it.
ReplyDeleteJim, I'm sure that upgrade will happen in the interests of saving paper. Great blog, Kathleen. I love the idea. Doctor's waiting rooms, BMV, Social Security office, polling places on election day.
ReplyDeleteJacqueline, I agree.
ReplyDeleteJim, that is probably coming, perhaps sooner than we expect.
Margaret, I can think of some great places for it, too. Airports, crowded restaurants with a line of people waiting, barber shop, etc.
How neat! I would love to try one out. Thanks for posting this so folks can be on the lookout for them.
ReplyDeleteJan, you can sample the stories at https://short-edition.com
ReplyDeleteI've even submitted to it, but need to keep trying. This is the child of the Espresso (or something like that) that prints whole books on demand, on the spot. I DO have books available on that device.
ReplyDeleteKaye, I must be behind the times on these devices. Hope you get your shorts accepted!
ReplyDeleteKathleen, I only know about it because one of my publishers put my books there. I don't remember how I heard about Short Edition. Here's info about the novel machine. https://www.ondemandbooks.com/
ReplyDeleteI just did a search and my Untreed Reads books are still there!