Indeed, you should check out the Espresso Book Machine. It's being installed in libraries around the world [1]. I've seen computations that suggest printing your book on demand might be more cost-efficient [2] than maintaining book inventories and hiring librarians to restock shelves.
> [2] Though probably much less environmentally sound!
Don't count on it. Paper isn't an environmental liability - all paper you can buy in the US and Europe is from sustainably farmed wood and recycling. As long and the resulting books are recycled, not inefficiently burned, it's fine.
Also, remember, the cost to maintain libraries isn't just financial, it's environmental as well.
Do you have a source re: sustainably farmed/recycled wood? I was not aware of this, and so often hear about disappearing forests in Brazil and Russia. But I'm curious.
Here in Brazil, most of the forest currently disappearing is because farmers want the land to raise cattle and make money off selling meat. Not paper.
Though forests used to be cut down for paper. That's no longer the case because it's not profitable anymore. Because of lack of demand.
But while the parent poster is right that virtually all paper today comes from sustainably farmed wood. That's still an ecological problem. Because sustainably farmed wood is not native to our eco system. Brazilian flora might take centuries to grow, so farmers would chop down local trees to plant European pine trees instead. Their propaganda, which the parent poster bought into, is that if you chop a tree to plant another, then no harm is done. But that's not how eco systems work. Local fauna cannot live in foreign pine trees, just as they wouldn't live in a concrete city. So many local species are now endangered or extinct because of paper farms.
I live on an area where a lot of paper farming used to happen. I had an American friend come here once. He told me the forest around the highway we were on surprised him. Because it looked nothing like the movies he seen, instead it looked just like Europe, with regularly spaced tall pine trees. He asked "is this where the monkeys are?", looking closely to the pines hoping to see one. Unfortunately, I told him, during my whole life here I have never seen a monkey in the wild. Even though this same place used to be the home of some really interesting species, like the golden lion monkey. But we could go to the zoo to see one if he wanted to.
Source of this is my experience as a local who used to be an active Greenpeace volunteer, back in the day.
First, it's not the wood that's recycled, it's the paper.
Most paper you can get is made from tree that are grown specifically to be made into paper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_farm) - those are managed and replanted just like any other kind of farm. They are also brilliant CO2 sinks (as long as the paper isn't burned). Look for any of the organisations mentioned in the WP article -- ATFS, FSC or SFI -- next time you're in an office supply store in the US, similar schemes for other parts of the world. You'll be hard pressed to find paper that isn't certified as being sustainably farmed under one of these schemes.
I can't speak for Russia, but the disappearing old growth rain forests in among others Brazil isn't for paper production, it's getting cleared for farming or harvested for the exoticness of the wood (for furniture etc) - not for paper production.
To be fair, I was only considering the fiber-end of the equation. Processing fiber (from wood or recycled paper) is energy, and (in particular) water intensive.
Note that a tree farm is not (usually) a forest. A tree farm is usually just trees, all the same type and age, in a relatively uniform grid, with minimal other flora or fauna. A forest is a complex ecosystem that happens to have trees as its largest component.
As neat as it is, the potential problem with the Espresso Book Machine is the quality of the resulting book. IIRC, the binding was not something that would hold up very well over time. There's a limit on what it can do; you can kiss hardcovers goodbye! It does, however, get the job done; it reminds me of the Wired piece "The Good Enough Revolution": http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/17-09/ff...
> IIRC, the binding was not something that would hold up very well over time.
I could say the same about a number of books I have bought at bookstores over the years. I mean, ask a librarian how well books hold up over time, and how often they need to be repaired simply from normal usage. And then when the paper itself begins to go south... (Admittedly, that was more of a problem before acid-free paper caught on.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso_Book_Machine
[2] Though probably much less environmentally sound!