Introduction

Technological enhancements have revolutionized how society acquires the majority of its media content. In this digital age, it is the desire of the masses to have access to large amounts of digital information. Electronic book (e-book) technology offers another platform for readers. Is digital literacy universally high enough to warrant an upcoming trend towards readers and do they, in the end, offer what the bound book cannot? 

Best-selling authors talk about the new platform (“storefront”) to sell their titles:

English Major curriculum: The Simpsons?

Came across a blog asking for more curriculum for English majors related to future career options. I think I would have definitely have taken a course on the History and the Future of the Book at UCLA had it been offered as Professor Jerz mentions he teaches. My “fun” class was the History of Hollywood Literature. There were lots of classes deconstructing past literature but nothing to really discuss the future of literature dissemination altogether. Even in my master’s program I would love more focus on actual book publishing. The digital specialization exposes me to lots of related material, but nothing on books. Guess I’ll have more fun for the thesis.

Side side note, do enjoy the Simpsons. Found a site that lists a plethora of academic papers written on them. Have to say this one is my favorite listing all the mathematical references in the show. Who knew The Simpsons were actually teaching the Pythagorean Theorem incorrectly? I thought they were quite the educational show.

Kindle love

My husband has had the Kindle since they first shipped. With our huge  built-in bookcase at its full capacity, he enjoys the ease of these virtual books. I’ve played around with it and definitely can see reading an entire book, although I wouldn’t necessarily read every kind of book on it. He likes the fact that many of his core text for his PhD program are available in Kindle format.

Joe Wikert and Evan Schnittman have great blogs listing implications digital readers will have on the market. And Josh Topolsky awaits the transformation of the reader into Web 2.0 compliance.

With a variety of uses, I think its fun that editors are using the ease of the Kindle and Sony Readers to save their backs in carrying once heavy handed manuscripts. This NY Mag article even equates the practice with going green.

And Kindle will definitely have competition. TeleRead blogger David Rothman introduces the latest technologies out of Taiwan.

Digital Distinctions

The debate about Open Access will continue to render librarians, publishers, and academics in various directions. 

Meanwhile, Michael Jensen reacts to a recent article about the success of free peer-reviewed online journals. He has some interesting distinctions between journal and book publishing when discussing open source platforms:

Journals are about throughput. Books are about craftsmanship. This is not to demean either publishing variant — they both serve key scholarly needs. But in much of the discussions on these topics, too often “open access” is thought to mean the same thing for every kind of document.

Having worked for a number of publishers who produced both books and journals I do agree that journals by their very nature lend themselves more aptly to digital states. And it does behoove us to take a look at how information is used before changing the way it is disseminated. 

Book Industry Study Group

Publisher’s Weekly  recants strides made at a recent International Digital Publishing Forum conference. One of the panelists, Peter Brantley summarizes on his blog, warning that “with the transition to digital fast upon us, we must brook no delay in our discussions.”

I appreciate that strides are being made for conversations between libraries and publishers. Our end goal is the same, but the way we function is quite different. At my previous job at a University Press we realized the importance of having librarians on the publisher’s side, and we made initial passes at collaborative efforts. These were smaller projects, and even though they were noteworthy, they failed to luster because of ill-defined roles. Publishers and librarians speak different languages. Open access frightens most publishers and authors. Barriers are still up and until both parties can walk away feeling even minutely victorious the discussion will remain a standstill.

Digital Communities Anew

Rheingold’s Smart Mobs continues a highly credentialed conversation on technology, the future, and the wide array of uses of these new gadgets.

What I walked away from this reading was both anticipation and dread. The same sentiment occurred when I had yet to embark on mobile technologies. I seemed to be the only person in Los Angeles without a cell phone back in 2001 and I was somewhat proud of this. Of coarse with an old Honda Accord and an impending drive cross country, I realized the safety features of a cell phone far outweighed my abhorrence to how those around me were using the devices. The trip aside, my trusty cell phone did bring with it lots of advantages.

The technology became imbedded into my life (although I do still abide to strict mobile etiquette) and I now don’t think twice when I call up a friend frantically trying to find her Greenwich apartment. The same idea was a large part of Rheingold’s message. There will always be the next best thing, but what is attestable to its success is the ability to become a part of our landscape naturally. Rheingold quotes Mark Weiser, former head of PARC, “They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” (p. 88).

Big Brother is always watching. A quick walk around the block and you can visually see how. Cameras mounted on buildings are no longer uncommon. They are also now visible in workplaces, schools, stores, and stop lights. Whether or not you advocate their existence, how they will be used (and enhanced) in the future will categorically force you to re-examine the trust you give to those in control of them.

I was interested in Rheingold’s vision of future educational uses of technology. He featured Jim Spohrer’s leading-edge WorldBoard where he intends to “make the entire world into a geo-spatial informational bulletin board” (p. 91). Global positioning software indeed brings data to a higher level of use.

Dave LaMorte’s blog covers the future of education with a great selection of links. He is tackling traditional teaching methods with the way information is now being accessed. “Education is changing…Teaching and learning is no longer confined to the classroom as there are more opportunities to gain enlightenment…We live in a world where students get information in many different ways, so we need to check up on them in different ways.” 

One of MIT’s blog posts written by John Borland brilliantly attests to the data on the web and how it will be laid out and organized in the future:

“(T)he socially networked, tag-rich services of Flickr, Last.fm, Del.icio.us, and the like are already imposing a grassroots order on collections of photos, music databases, and Web pages. Allowing Web users to draw their own connections, creating, sharing, and modifying their own systems of organization, provides data with structure that is usefully modeled on the way people think, advocates say…No one knows what organizational technique will ultimately prevail. But what’s increasingly clear is that different kinds of order, and a variety of ways to unearth data and reuse it in new applications, are coming to the Web. There will be no Dewey here, no one system that arranges all the world’s digital data in a single framework.

Technology will continue to revolutionize our lives in different ways. What we can only hope for is that those who govern the tools not only have honorable intentions, but create end products useful enough to become indistinguishable.