Book Vs Box
Id just like to raise a cheer for the book, for the diary, for the novel, for the original physical page that you can touch, feel and turn. I’m afraid the box, the keyboard and the screen have never done it for me…
While the computer has taken on the vocabulary and terms of the book, has reproduced its characters, minimized its space and who knows what else… do you really want to sit up in your bed at night or on the beach on holiday and read something off a back lit screen? I know I don’t.
In this ‘digital age’ we see an ever increasing amount of literature available online. I looked up a book on ndeva the other day only to find that no; the uni library did not have a copy on shelf but that yes, they did have one online. Forget that, id rather drink instant coffee.
People are accessing this literature via a hundred different ways most of which I know next to nothing about. I even saw someone reading the Bible off his hand held pc the other day, the Bible!!
While advancements in technology are amazing and achieve great things I don’t think the book will ever disappear. It’s been present for thousands of years, a way of recording thoughts, ideas and narrative. On top of that there’s its nostalgic value with which we are obsessed. I think that nostalgia could be traced into some of the reasoning behind that theory presented via the graph (could someone post that up?) at the end of Luke’s lecture (2nd Aug) the other day. Along with that would have to be the authenticity a book has, an authenticity that people desire to possess.
Having said all this, I guess technology has impacted the book itself a lot over the centuries. Its production methods in particular have evolved from the Papyrus of ancient Egypt to being hand written and bound by priests in monasteries, followed by Gutenberg’s printing press of the mid 15th century and then on to the instant printing of today. It’s the aesthetics that are now being revolutionized from being physically accessible to being somewhere out there in this digital realm or dimension that we’ve invented and can access yet not touch…It’s this touch I love. The feel of a dog-eared page, a well worn cover, the coffee stain, the book mark…
While the computer has taken on the vocabulary and terms of the book, has reproduced its characters, minimized its space and who knows what else… do you really want to sit up in your bed at night or on the beach on holiday and read something off a back lit screen? I know I don’t.
In this ‘digital age’ we see an ever increasing amount of literature available online. I looked up a book on ndeva the other day only to find that no; the uni library did not have a copy on shelf but that yes, they did have one online. Forget that, id rather drink instant coffee.
People are accessing this literature via a hundred different ways most of which I know next to nothing about. I even saw someone reading the Bible off his hand held pc the other day, the Bible!!
While advancements in technology are amazing and achieve great things I don’t think the book will ever disappear. It’s been present for thousands of years, a way of recording thoughts, ideas and narrative. On top of that there’s its nostalgic value with which we are obsessed. I think that nostalgia could be traced into some of the reasoning behind that theory presented via the graph (could someone post that up?) at the end of Luke’s lecture (2nd Aug) the other day. Along with that would have to be the authenticity a book has, an authenticity that people desire to possess.
Having said all this, I guess technology has impacted the book itself a lot over the centuries. Its production methods in particular have evolved from the Papyrus of ancient Egypt to being hand written and bound by priests in monasteries, followed by Gutenberg’s printing press of the mid 15th century and then on to the instant printing of today. It’s the aesthetics that are now being revolutionized from being physically accessible to being somewhere out there in this digital realm or dimension that we’ve invented and can access yet not touch…It’s this touch I love. The feel of a dog-eared page, a well worn cover, the coffee stain, the book mark…
posted by Reuben at 3:48 pm
2 Comments:
I too share your fondness for books. I don't see it as an either/or, and as something like Amazon.com suggests, the digital age has most certainly failed to kill off the humble book. Here's the link to the graph you requested - there's some silliness in this article, and it should be taken with a pinch of salt (it's also a puff-piece for Lulu.com - not an independent analysis). But the ridiculousness of the idea is precisely what is fascinating here and part of the reason why we have to remember that the democratization of 'authorship' does not, in itself, suffice to make a healthy public sphere - are we 'netizens' just talking to ourselves or, as a Wired magazine editorial once put it, 'p***ing into the digital wind'?
I also agree that books are better than reading stuff on your computer. I find it tireing reading large pieces of text on my laptop compared to reading a book, which is for my sake something I do when I relax.
I also think it's got something to do with the fact that I think of reading on my computer as something I use for work, like researching for an essay. And that sort of "sets me in the mood" if you know what I mean.
Of course I use my computer not only for work (it's on practically all the time I'm at home), but it's just the reading part I find a bit exhausting. I don't think I ever will read a whole book on the net, and I still buy good (paper-) books any time I get a chance ;)
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