And of all things, ephemera should be free. Especially when it’s funny. Perhaps they’ll soon be optioning some kind of Ephemerium model.
Second, it’s named after John de Monins Johnson (1882-1956), Printer to the University of Oxford, who, interested in preserving the things people glance at and then throw into the bin, adopted the term ‘ephemera’, originally a word for an insect that lived only for a day.
Printed ephemera being: "Everything which would ordinarily go into the waste paper basket after use, everything printed which is not actually a book…"
Which made me think of one or two throwaway things, destined for blog ephemera:
- What modern ephemera goes into the digital trash basket or deleted items folder straight after (even before) use these days?
- Or are books (or anything printed or printable over a certain limit) the new ephemera?
- Ok, three: are books and only for a day ephemera colliding?
Which of course matters if you’re writing or publishing something. Meaning everyone and every business, everyday. Especially here on HubCap. So once you've thought about this for you and your business, any ideas how to avoid - or create - the ephemeral tag here?
