bewildering speed
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Apparently, the core concept of this piece.
What, for example, will become of research libraries in the face of technological marvels such as Google?
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raluke
How to make sense of it all? I have no answer to that problem, but I can suggest an approach to it: look at the history of the ways information has been communicated. Simplifying things radically, you could say that there have been four fundamental changes in information technology since humans learned to speak.
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andrewjb
four fundamental changes in information technology since humans learned to speak.
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beahgo
there have been four fundamental changes in information technology since humans learned to speak.
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raluke
four fundamental changes in information technology
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Interesting timeline. A bit too linear, but rather convincing in the context.
on 2008-08-06 by
jimbeau
Of course, a timeline would be linear. But the point is well taken. Think of other lines that could be drawn which might include things like Luther's translating the Bible into German in the 16th century and the Lyceum movement in the 19th century.;the development of public education and the public library: not changes in the technology, but parallel changes in the culture. Are these things really the result of a change of information technology? Maybe Guttenberg really did beget Luther--but it seems a little simple.
on 2008-08-07 by
enkerli
Sounds tautological, doesn't it?
I was using "linear" for "unilinear" but a more appropriate term would be "teleological." Darnton's description makes it sound, at this point, as if the changes were somehow oriented toward a given goal. Of course, the rest of the article goes on to problematize this. But mine was a knee-jerk reaction. And, in fact, it was more about "I don't usually like those timelines, but this one works rather well in this specific context."
Somewhere, around 4000 BC, humans learned to write.
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andrewjb
Somewhere, around 4000 BC, humans learned to write
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jimbeau
around 4000 BC, humans learned to write.
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beahgo
Somewhere, around 4000 BC, humans learned to write
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raluke
the invention of writing was the most important technological breakthrough in the history of humanity
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beahgo
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Goody and other anthropologists have had a lot to say about the cultural and historical contexts for "information technology."
on 2008-08-06 by
jimbeau
I don't know his work. Someone to look up one of these days
on 2008-08-07 by
enkerli
Goody's work hasn't been that popular recently, except among some dedicated students of orality. One reason may be that some of Goody's core concepts are well-understood, now.
The history of books led to a second technological shift when the codex replaced the scroll sometime soon after the beginning of the Christian era.
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andrewjb
most important technological breakthrough
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
If I remember correctly, surveys about "most important inventions" often show a similar perspective in the general population, at least among industrial societies. Perhaps we're simply a scriptocentric bunch.
I personally tend to think orality remembers very powerful but, apart from the origins of spoken language, it's very difficult to talk about breakthroughs in orality before the latter part of the Industrial Revolution (with recording and broadcasting technology). My gut feeling is that the Post-Industrial period is giving new meaning to orality.
By the third century AD, the codex—that is, books with pages that you turn as opposed to scrolls that you roll—became crucial to the spread of Christianity. It transformed the experience of reading: the page emerged as a unit of perception, and readers were able to leaf through a clearly articulated text, one that eventually included differentiated words (that is, words separated by spaces), paragraphs, and chapters, along with tables of contents, indexes, and other reader's aids.
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andrewjb
It transformed mankind's relation to the past and opened a way for the emergence of the book as a force in history.
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raluke
second technological shift when the codex replaced the scroll sometime soon after the beginning of the Christian era. By the third century AD, the codex—that is, books with pages that you turn as opposed to scrolls that you roll
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beahgo
the codex replaced the scroll sometime soon after the beginning of the Christian era.
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raluke
history of books
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Preaching to the choir?
The history of books led to a second technological shift when the codex replaced
the scroll sometime soon after the beginning of the Christian era
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jimbeau
eventually included differentiated words (that is, words separated by spaces
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beahgo
other reader's aids
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beahgo
The codex, in turn, was transformed by the invention of printing with movable type in the 1450s.
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andrewjb
To be sure, the Chinese developed movable type around 1045 and the Koreans used metal characters rather than wooden blocks around 1230. But Gutenberg's invention, unlike those of the Far East, spread like wildfire, bringing the book within the reach of ever-widening circles of readers. The technology of printing did not change for nearly four centuries, but the reading public grew larger and larger, thanks to improvements in literacy, education, and access to the printed word. Pamphlets and newspapers, printed by steam-driven presses on paper made from wood pulp rather than rags, extended the process of democratization so that a mass reading public came into existence during the second half of the nineteenth century.
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andrewjb
codex, in turn, was transformed by the invention of printing with movable type in the 1450s.
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beahgo
The codex, in turn, was transformed by the invention of printing with movable type in the 1450s.
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raluke
the Chinese developed movable type around 1045
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Hadn't realized this!
on 2008-08-06 by
jimbeau
See Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China.
on 2008-08-07 by
enkerli
Thanks for the reference. Maybe this is common knowledge in some circles but I find this point to be a good way to complexify the "unilinear evolution" view.
the invention of printing with movable type
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jimbeau
Gutenberg's invention, unlike those of the Far East, spread like wildfire
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Interesting point about technological adoption. Like Gutenberg's printing press, the Internet wouldn't be that relevant were it not for the social changes which made its adoption so widespread. Contrary to a McLuhan-influenced approach to technological determinism frequent in today's discussion about online culture, a tool is just a tool before society adopts and adapts it.
on 2008-08-06 by
jimbeau
Needham proposed to investigate why Chinese inovation did not spread to the rest of the world, but I don't know that he ever did.
The fourth great change, electronic communication, took place yesterday, or the day before, depending on how you measure it.
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andrewjb
technology of printing did not change for nearly four centuries, but the reading public grew larger and larger, thanks to improvements in literacy, education, and access to the printed word.
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beahgo
fourth great change, electronic communication
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beahgo
The fourth great change, electronic communication, took place yesterday, or the day before, depending on how you measure it
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raluke
The Internet dates from 1974, at least as a term.
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
The reason this is important to point out is that many commentators tend to talk about the Internet as something of an overnight sensation from the mid-1990s. I went online for the first time in 1993 and it was already clear that the Internet had been in existence for a while. But the "Internet Revolution" was in a very early phase.
on 2008-08-06 by
jimbeau
And it took off when it was commercialized; but let's also give a tip of the hat to html/
on 2008-08-07 by
enkerli
Yes, HTML and HTTP were quite important in the Internet revolution. But my point is that, whatever the technology, it will only take off if it finds "fertile ground." (I like mixed metaphors.)
When strung out in this manner, the pace of change seems breathtaking: from writing to the codex, 4,300 years; from the codex to movable type, 1,150 years; from movable type to the Internet, 524 years; from the Internet to search engines, nineteen years; from search engines to Google's algorithmic relevance ranking, seven years; and who knows what is just around the corner or coming out the pipeline?
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andrewjb
electronic communication
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jimbeau
Each change in the technology has transformed the information landscape, and the speed-up has continued at such a rate as to seem both unstoppable and incomprehensible. In the long view—what French historians call
la longue durée—the general picture looks quite clear—or, rather, dizzying. But by aligning the facts in this manner, I have made them lead to an excessively dramatic conclusion. Historians, American as well as French, often play such tricks. By rearranging the evidence, it is possible to arrive at a different picture, one that emphasizes continuity instead of change. The continuity I have in mind has to do with the nature of information itself or, to put it differently, the inherent instability of texts. In place of the long-term view of technological transformations, which underlies the common notion that we have just entered a new era, the information age, I want to argue that every age was an age of information, each in its own way, and that information has always been unstable.
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andrewjb
writing to the codex, 4,300 years;
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beahgo
pace of change seems breathtaking:
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beahgo
codex to movable type, 1,150 years;
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beahgo
movable type to the Internet, 524 years;
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beahgo
Internet to search engines, nineteen years
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beahgo
search engines to Google's algorithmic relevance ranking, seven years;
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beahgo
continued at such a rate as to seem both unstoppable and incomprehensible.
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beahgo
French historians call
la longue durée
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Didn't realize this concept wasn't prominent in English.
la longue durée
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jimbeau
continuity I have in mind has to do with the nature of information itself or, to put it differently, the inherent instability of texts.
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beahgo
emphasizes continuity instead of change
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Foucault over Kuhn.
By rearranging the evidence, it is possible to arrive at a different picture,
one that emphasizes continuity instead of change
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jimbeau
The continuity I have in mind has to do with the nature of information itself
or, to put it differently, the inherent instability of texts
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jimbeau
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
'The inherent instability of texts' functions to counter the picture of the situation he has just sketched. It points to the continuity of our current situation with the past.
every age was an age of information, each in its own way, and that information has always been unstable.
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beahgo
Other stories about blogging point to the same conclusion: blogs create news, and news can take the form of a textual reality that trumps the reality under our noses. Today many reporters spend more time tracking blogs than they do checking out traditional sources such as the spokespersons of public authorities. News in the information age has broken loose from its conventional moorings, creating possibilities of misinformation on a global scale. We live in a time of unprecedented accessibility to information that is increasingly unreliable. Or do we?
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andrewjb
information has always been unstable
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jimbeau
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
Note: 'information' and 'texts' are not exactly the same. What is the role of scientific information?
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
One could argue that "texts" are actually the stable form for information, implying formalism.
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Of course, the stability is presumed, not actual. But the concept of a text does seem to imply some sense of stability contrary to the concept of tradition which implies continuity through change.
on 2008-08-07 by
jimbeau
Still, there is ambiguity here—though perhaps it is only in my own thinking. Are we talking about the accuracy of textual materials, the kind of mistake that might be made by a monk copying a manuscript, or are we talking about the credibility of what is asserted by that text?
on 2008-08-07 by
enkerli
Interestingly, we seem to have very distinct notions of the relationships between information and text. Nice!
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
One thing I love about The Onion, and one reason I've blogged about it so many times, is that it forces readers to apply critical thinking. Some thing with satire in general, but The Onion has a high rate of insightful stories.
I would argue that news has always been an artifact and that it never corresponded exactly to what actually happened. We take today's front page as a mirror of yesterday's events, but it was made up yesterday evening—literally, by "make-up" editors, who designed page one according to arbitrary conventions: lead story on the far right column, off-lead on the left, soft news inside or below the fold, features set off by special kinds of headlines. Typographical design orients the reader and shapes the meaning of the news. News itself takes the form of narratives composed by professionals according to conventions that they picked up in the course of their training—the "inverted pyramid" mode of exposition, the "color" lead, the code for "high" and "the highest" sources, and so on. News is not what happened but a story about what happened.
Of course, many reporters do their best to be accurate, but they must conform to the conventions of their craft, and there is always slippage between their choice of words and the nature of an event as experienced or perceived by others. Ask anyone involved in a reported happening. They will tell you that they did not recognize themselves or the event in the story that appeared in the paper.
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andrewjb
story about the Chinese view of the United States
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Not that inaccurate a depiction of Chinese perspectives on the United States, it seems. Otherwise, the Beijing Evening News wouldn't have picked the story.
The same applies to the U.S. media outlets: if the U.S. opinion about the Chinese perspective on the United States had been incompatible with this story, they wouldn't have picked it up.
reporters spend more time tracking blogs than they do checking out traditional source
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Interesting point in the debate about journalism vs. blogging. Bloggers and other readers also spend a lot of time tracking blogs, and they do so with their own approaches to critical thinking. Apart from the acuracy question, this tendency to track blogs diminishes the value of journalism by displacing the standpoint from which critical thinking is applied.
We live in a time of unprecedented accessibility to information that is increasingly unreliable. Or do we?
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beahgo
We live in a time of unprecedented accessibility to information that is increasingly unreliable. Or do we?
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raluke
Sophisticated readers in the Soviet Union learned to distrust everything that appeared in
Pravda and even to take nonappearances as a sign of something going on. On August 31, 1980, when Lech Wal/e?sa signed the agreement with the Polish government that created Solidarity as an independent trade union, the Polish people refused at first to believe it, not because the news failed to reach them but because it was reported on the state-controlled television.
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andrewjb
news has always been an artifact and that it never corresponded exactly to what actually happened.
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beahgo
I would argue that news has always been an artifact and that it never corresponded exactly to what actually happened.
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
I sincerely hope they teach this in "J-School."
I would argue that news has always been an artifact and that it never corresponded exactly to what actually happened
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raluke
I used to be a newspaper reporter myself. I got my basic training as a college kid covering police headquarters in Newark in 1959. Although I had worked on school newspapers, I did not know what news was—that is, what events would make a story and what combination of words would make it into print after passing muster with the night city editor. When events reached headquarters, they normally took the form of "squeal sheets" or typed reports of calls received at the central switchboard. Squeal sheets concerned everything from stray dogs to murders, and they accumulated at a rate of a dozen every half hour. My job was to collect them from a lieutenant on the second floor, go through them for anything that might be news, and announce the potential news to the veteran reporters from a dozen papers playing poker in the press room on the ground floor. The poker game acted as a filter for the news. One of the reporters would say if something I selected would be worth checking out. I did the checking, usually by phone calls to key offices like the homicide squad. If the information was good enough, I would tell the poker game, whose members would phone it in to their city desks. But it had to be really good—that is, what ordinary people would consider bad—to warrant interrupting the never-ending game. Poker was everyone's main interest—everyone but me: I could not afford to play (cards cost a dollar ante, a lot of money in those days), and I needed to develop a nose for news.
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andrewjb
I would argue that news has always been an artifact and that it never
corresponded exactly to what actually happened
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jimbeau
orients the reader
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Which is precisely one of the ways journalism makes it so hard for readers to apply critical thinking.
their training
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
What I've heard about "J-School" so far makes me want to read or do a critical ethnography of journalism.
News is not what happened but a story about what happened.
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beahgo
News is not what happened but a story about what happened.
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jimbeau
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
Narrative conventions shape the information.
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
The critical difference between information and narratives is lost in the journalistic practise.
Ask anyone involved in a reported happening. They will tell you that they did not recognize themselves or the event in the story that appeared in the paper. Sophisticated readers in the Soviet Union learned to distrust everything that appeared in
Pravda and even to take nonappearances as a sign of something going on
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raluke
learned to distrust everything
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Media literacy and critical thinking.
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
slippage??
On August 31, 1980, when Lech Walesa signed the agreement with the Polish government that created Solidarity as an independent trade union, the Polish people refused at first to believe it, not because the news failed to reach them but because it was reported on the state-controlled television.
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Love it!
I soon learned to disregard DOAs (dead on arrival, meaning ordinary deaths) and robberies of gas stations, but it took time for me to spot something really "good," like a holdup in a respectable store or a water main break at a central location. One day I found a squeal sheet that was so good —it combined rape and murder—that I went straight to the homicide squad instead of reporting first to the poker game. When I showed it to the lieutenant on duty, he looked at me in disgust: "Don't you see this, kid?" he said, pointing to a B in parentheses after the names of the victim and the suspect. Only then did I notice that every name was followed by a B or a W. I did not know that crimes involving black people did not qualify as news.
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andrewjb
I used to be a newspaper reporter myself
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
One neat thing about former reporters is that they tend to be fairly good critiques of journalism.
Having learned to write news, I now distrust newspapers as a source of information, and I am often surprised by historians who take them as primary sources for knowing what really happened. I think newspapers should be read for information about how contemporaries construed events, rather than for reliable knowledge of events themselves.
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andrewjb
A study of news during the American Revolution by a graduate student of mine, Will Slauter, provides an example.
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andrewjb
The poker game acted as a filter for the news.
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Sounds extreme but it's a very efficient image.
every name was followed by a B or a W
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
wow.
aving learned to write news, I now distrust newspapers as a source of information, and I am often surprised by historians who take them as primary sources for knowing what really happened
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beahgo
Having learned to write news, I now distrust newspapers as a source of information, and I am often surprised by historians who take them as primary sources for knowing what really happened. I think newspapers should be read for information about how contemporaries construed events, rather than for reliable knowledge of events themselves.
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sycamores3
newspapers should be read for information about how contemporaries construed events, rather than for reliable knowledge of events
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beahgo
surprised by historians who take them as primary sources
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
But I thought historians were specialists in recontextualizing sources? At least, that's what I learnt about «critique des sources», a while back.
I did not know that crimes involving black people did not qualify as news
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jimbeau
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
Okay--prejudice effects our knowledge of the world. It makes texts unstable because the motivation that went into the story influences what qualifies.as news.
But what is reported...this can still be weighed on the scale of truth or falsity.
isolated paragraphs rather than "stories"
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Problems often occur during the transformation of those isolated snippets into narratives. Seems like the Post-Industrial era will give more prominence to the Eighteenth century model.
(In fact, he was reported dead four times during the coverage of the war, and the London press declared Benedict Arnold dead twenty-six times.)
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andrewjb
Le Courrier de l'Europe, a French newspaper produced in London, printed a translated digest of the English reports with a note warning that they probably were false. This version of the event passed through a dozen French papers produced in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Switzerland, and France itself. By the time it arrived in Versailles, the news of Washington's defeat had been completely discounted. The comte de Vergennes, France's foreign minister, therefore continued to favor military intervention on the side of the Americans. And in London, when Howe's report of his victory finally arrived after a long delay (he had unaccountably neglected to write for two weeks), it was eclipsed by the more spectacular news of Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga. So the defeat at Brandywine turned into a case of miswritten and misread news—a media
non-event whose meaning was determined by the process of its transmission, like the blogging about the convertible dome and the filtering of crime reports in Newark's police headquarters.
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andrewjb
Information has never been stable. That may be a truism, but it bears pondering. It could serve as a corrective to the belief that the speedup in technological change has catapulted us into a new age, in which information has spun completely out of control. I would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself. It should not be understood as if it took the form of hard facts or nuggets of reality ready to be quarried out of newspapers, archives, and libraries, but rather as messages that are constantly being reshaped in the process of transmission. Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must deal with multiple, mutable texts. By studying them skeptically on our computer screens, we can learn how to read our daily newspaper more effectively—and even how to appreciate old books.
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andrewjb
Londoners had learned to mistrust their newspapers
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Nice.
Of course, contemporary readers in the United States have learnt to mistrust their newspapers too. But this mistrust is very selective.
Bibliographers came around to this view long before the Internet. Sir Walter Greg developed it at the end of the nineteenth century, and Donald McKenzie perfected it at the end of the twentieth century. Their work provides an answer to the questions raised by bloggers, Googlers, and other enthusiasts of the World Wide Web: Why save more than one copy of a book? Why spend large sums to purchase first editions? Aren't rare book collections doomed to obsolescence now that everything will be available on the Internet?
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andrewjb
with a note warning that they probably were false
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enkerli
it bears pondering
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Especially in scriptocentric contexts. There is a tendency for literacy-focused people to assume that the written text is stable. Those who favour orality tend to be quite clear about the instability of information and may put more weight on direct transmission.
would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself.
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beahgo
So the defeat at Brandywine turned into a case of miswritten and misread news—a
media
non-event whose meaning was determined by the process of its
transmission
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jimbeau
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
Political expediency will effect what is reported, and falsity can creep into information even before the Internet
Of course, Shakespeare is a special case. But textual stability never existed in the pre-Internet eras. The most widely diffused edition of Diderot's Encyclopédie in eighteenth-century France contained hundreds of pages that did not exist in the original edition. Its editor was a clergyman who padded the text with excerpts from a sermon by his bishop in order to win the bishop's patronage. Voltaire considered the Encyclopédie so imperfect that he designed his last great work, Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, as a nine-volume sequel to it. In order to spice up his text and to increase its diffusion, he collaborated with pirates behind the back of his own publisher, adding passages to the pirated editions.
In fact, Voltaire toyed with his texts so much that booksellers complained. As soon as they sold one edition of a work, another would appear, featuring additions and corrections by the author. Their customers protested. Some even said that they would not buy an edition of Voltaire's complete works —and there were many, each different from the others—until he died, an event eagerly anticipated by retailers throughout the book trade.
Piracy was so pervasive in early modern Europe that best-sellers could not be blockbusters as they are today. Instead of being produced in huge numbers by one publisher, they were printed simultaneously in many small editions by many publishers, each racing to make the most of a market unconstrained by copyright. Few pirates attempted to produce accurate counterfeits of the original editions. They abridged, expanded, and reworked texts as they pleased, without worrying about the authors' intentions. They behaved as deconstructionists avant la lettre.
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andrewjb
as messages that are constantly being reshaped in the process of transmission
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beahgo
Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must deal with multiple, mutable texts. By studying them skeptically on our computer screens, we can learn how to read our daily newspaper more effectively—and even how to appreciate old books.
Highlighted by
beahgo
Information has never been stable.
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jimbeau
read our daily newspaper more effectively
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enkerli
I would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the
notion of information itself. It should not be understood as if it took the form
of hard facts or nuggets of reality ready to be quarried out of newspapers,
archives, and libraries, but rather as messages that are constantly being
reshaped in the process of transmission. Instead of firmly fixed documents, we
must deal with multiple, mutable texts.
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jimbeau
on 2008-05-29 by
jimbeau
Information a 'multiple, mutable texts', shaped and reshaped by the method of transmission.
Unbelievers used to dismiss Henry Clay Folger's determination to accumulate copies of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare as the mania of a crank.
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beahgo
When Folger's collection grew beyond three dozen copies, his friends scoffed at him as Forty Folio Folger.
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beahgo
eighteen of the thirty-six plays in the First Folio had never before been printed
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beahgo
The issue of textual stability leads to the general question about the role of research libraries in the age of the Internet. I cannot pretend to offer easy answers, but I would like to put the question in perspective by discussing two views of the library, which I would describe as grand illusions—grand and partly true.
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andrewjb
only two were reprinted without change from earlier quarto editions
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beahgo
To students in the 1950s, libraries looked like citadels of learning. Knowledge came packaged between hard covers, and a great library seemed to contain all of it.
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andrewjb
Students today still respect their libraries, but reading rooms are nearly empty on some campuses. In order to entice the students back, some librarians offer them armchairs for lounging and chatting, even drinks and snacks, never mind about the crumbs. Modern or postmodern students do most of their research at computers in their rooms. To them, knowledge comes online, not in libraries. They know that libraries could never contain it all within their walls, because information is endless, extending everywhere on the Internet, and to find it one needs a search engine, not a card catalog. But this, too, may be a grand illusion—or, to put it positively, there is something to be said for both visions, the library as a citadel and the Internet as open space. We have come to the problems posed by Google Book Search.
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andrewjb
The differences were compounded by at least one hundred stop-press corrections and by the peculiar practices of at least nine compositors who set the copy while also working on other jobs—and occasionally abandoning Shakespeare to an incompetent teen-age apprentice.
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carolinacc
the most important works in the English language
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Pardon?
on 2008-08-07 by
jimbeau
O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue...
on 2008-08-07 by
enkerli
To a French-speaker, the idea of an author having produced the most important works in a language is quite odd. I have nothing against Shakespeare and I know his work has been very influential, but I may have a different notion of "importance."
extual stability never existed in the pre-Internet eras.
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beahgo
textual stability never existed in the pre-Internet eras
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enkerli
Questions sur l'Encyclopédie
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Étrangement, j'en avais jamais entendu parler!
Now, I speak as a Google enthusiast. I believe Google Book Search really will make book learning accessible on a new, worldwide scale, despite the great digital divide that separates the poor from the computerized. It also will open up possibilities for research involving vast quantities of data, which could never be mastered without digitization. As an example of what the future holds, I would cite the Electronic Enlightenment, a project sponsored by the Voltaire Foundation of Oxford. By digitizing the correspondence of Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, and Jefferson—about two hundred volumes in superb, scholarly editions —it will, in effect, recreate the transatlantic republic of letters from the eighteenth century.
The letters of many other philosophers, from Locke and Bayle to Bentham and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, will be integrated into this database, so that scholars will be able to trace references to individuals, books, and ideas throughout the entire network of correspondence that undergirded the Enlightenment. Many other such projects—notably American Memory sponsored by the Library of Congress[1] and the Valley of the Shadow created at the University of Virginia[2] —have demonstrated the feasibility and usefulness of databases on this scale. But their success does not prove that Google Book Search, the largest undertaking of them all, will make research libraries obsolete. On the contrary, Google will make them more important than ever. To support this view, I would like to organize my argument around eight points.
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andrewjb
Piracy was so pervasive in early modern Europe that best-sellers could not be blockbusters as they are today
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beahgo
They abridged, expanded, and reworked texts as they pleased, without worrying about the authors' intentions.
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beahgo
unconstrained
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enkerli
deconstructionists
avant la lettre.
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enkerli
on 2008-08-03 by
enkerli
Interesting way to put it. Another would be to say that deconstructionism took its source in the "unconstrained market" of ideas, regardless of liberal concepts of property.
1. According to the most utopian claim of the Googlers, Google can put virtually all printed books on-line. That claim is misleading, and it raises the danger of creating false consciousness, because it may lull us into neglecting our libraries.
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andrewjb
question in perspective by discussing two views of the library, which I would describe as grand illusions—grand and partly true.
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beahgo
To students in the 1950s, libraries looked like citadels of learning. Knowledge came packaged between hard covers, and a great library seemed to contain all of it. To climb the steps of the New York Public Library, past the stone lions guarding its entrance and into the monumental reading room on the third floor, was to enter a world that included everything known. The knowledge came ordered into standard categories which could be pursued through a card catalog and into the pages of the books. In colleges everywhere the library stood at the center of the campus. It was the most important building, a temple set off by classical columns, where one read in silence: no noise, no food, no disturbances beyond a furtive glance at a potential date bent over a book in quiet contemplation.
Students today still respect their libraries, but reading rooms are nearly empty on some campuses. In order to entice the students back, some librarians offer them armchairs for lounging and chatting, even drinks and snacks, never mind about the crumbs. Modern or postmodern students do most of their research at computers in their rooms. To them, knowledge comes online, not in libraries. They know that libraries could never contain it all within their walls, because information is endless, extending everywhere on the Internet, and to find it one needs a search engine, not a card catalog. But this, too, may be a grand illusion—or, to put it positively, there is something to be said for both visions, the library as a citadel and the Internet as open space. We have come to the problems posed by Google Book Search.
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thompsonlibrary
The issue of textual stability leads to the general question about the role of
research libraries in the age of the Internet
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jimbeau
Students today still respect their libraries, but reading rooms are nearly empty on some campuses. In order to entice the students back, some librarians offer them armchairs for lounging and chatting, even drinks and snacks, never mind about the crumbs. Modern or postmodern students do most of their research at computers in their rooms. To them, knowledge comes online, not in libraries. They know that libraries could never contain it all within their walls, because information is endless, extending everywhere on the Internet, and to find it one needs a search engine, not a card catalog. But this, too, may be a grand illusion—or, to put it positively, there is something to be said for both visions, the library as a citadel and the Internet as open space.
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bibliothecaire
To students in the 1950s, libraries looked like citadels of learning
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jimbeau
2. Although Google pursued an intelligent strategy by signing up five great libraries, their combined holdings will not come close to exhausting the stock of books in the United States.
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andrewjb
o put it positively, there is something to be said for both visions, the library as a citadel and the Internet as open space.
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beahgo
We have come to the problems posed by Google Book Search.
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beahgo
In 2006 Google signed agreements with five great research libraries—the New York Public, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, and Oxford's Bodleian—to digitize their books
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raluke
Google proposal seemed to offer a way to make all book learning available to all people, or at least those privileged enough to have access to the World Wide Web
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beahgo
3. Although it is to be hoped that the publishers, authors, and Google will settle their dispute, it is difficult to see how copyright will cease to pose a problem.
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andrewjb
Now, I speak as a Google enthusiast. I believe Google Book Search really will make book learning accessible on a new, worldwide scale, despite the great digital divide that separates the poor from the computerized. It also will open up possibilities for research involving vast quantities of data, which could never be mastered without digitization. As an example of what the future holds, I would cite the Electronic Enlightenment, a project sponsored by the Voltaire Foundation of Oxford. By digitizing the correspondence of Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, and Jefferson—about two hundred volumes in superb, scholarly editions —it will, in effect, recreate the transatlantic republic of letters from the eighteenth century.
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lspiro
It promised to be the ultimate stage in the democratization of knowledge set in motion by the invention of writing, the codex, movable type, and the Internet.
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raluke
will open up possibilities for research involving vast quantities of data, which could never be mastered without digitization
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beahgo
Electronic Enlightenment, a project sponsored by the Voltaire Foundation of Oxford
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beahgo
scholars will be able to trace references to individuals, books, and ideas throughout the entire network of correspondence that undergirded the Enlightenment
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beahgo
4. Companies decline rapidly in the fast-changing environment of electronic technology.
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andrewjb
notably American Memory sponsored by the Library of Congress
[1] and the Valley of the Shadow created at the University of Virginia
[2] —have demonstrated the feasibility and usefulness of databases on this scale
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beahgo
will make research libraries obsolete
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beahgo
On the contrary, Google will make them more important than ever. To support this view, I would like to organize my argument around eight points.
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beahgo
5. Google will make mistakes.
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andrewjb
1. According to the most utopian claim of the Googlers, Google can put virtually all printed books on-line.
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beahgo
6. As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that Google's copies will last.
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andrewjb
the residual, nondigitized books could be important.
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bibliothecaire
7. Google plans to digitize many versions of each book, taking whatever it gets as the copies appear, assembly-line fashion, from the shelves; but will it make all of them available? If so, which one will it put at the top of its search list? Ordinary readers could get lost while searching among thousands of different editions of Shakespeare's plays, so they will depend on the editions that Google makes most easily accessible.
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andrewjb
But their success does not prove that Google Book Search, the largest
undertaking of them all, will make research libraries obsolete. On the contrary,
Google will make them more important than ever
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jimbeau
If Google missed this book, and other books like it, the researcher who relied on Google would never be able to locate certain works of great importance.
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beahgo
According to the most utopian claim of the Googlers, Google can put virtually
all printed books on-line
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jimbeau
2. Although Google pursued an intelligent strategy by signing up five great libraries, their combined holdings will not come close to exhausting the stock of books in the United States.
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beahgo
8. Even if the digitized image on the computer screen is accurate, it will fail to capture crucial aspects of a book.
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andrewjb
As Google signs up more libraries—at last count, twenty-eight are participating in Google Book Search—the representativeness of its digitized database will improve. But it has not yet ventured into special collections, where the rarest works are to be found. And of course the totality of world literature—all the books in all the languages of the world—lies far beyond Google's capacity to digitize.
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bibliothecaire
it has not yet ventured into special collections, where the rarest works are to be found. And of course the totality of world literature—all the books in all the languages of the world—lies far beyond Google's capacity to digitize
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beahgo
3. Although it is to be hoped that the publishers, authors, and Google will settle their dispute, it is difficult to see how copyright will cease to pose a problem.
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beahgo
it is difficult to see how copyright will cease to pose a problem.
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bibliothecaire
Although Google pursued an intelligent strategy by signing up five great
libraries, their combined holdings will not come close to exhausting the stock
of books in the United States
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jimbeau
For books under copyright, however, Google will probably display only a few lines at a time, which it claims is legal under fair use.
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beahgo
Google defines its mission as the communication of information—right now, today; it does not commit itself to conserving texts indefinitely.
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bibliothecaire
Google defines its mission as the communication of information—right now, today; it does not commit itself to conserving texts indefinitely.
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beahgo
In fact, the strongest argument for the old-fashioned book is its effectiveness for ordinary readers. Thanks to Google, scholars are able to search, navigate, harvest, mine, deep link, and crawl (the terms vary along with the technology) through millions of Web sites and electronic texts. At the same time, anyone in search of a good read can pick up a printed volume and thumb through it at ease, enjoying the magic of words as ink on paper. No computer screen gives satisfaction like the printed page. But the Internet delivers data that can be transformed into a classical codex. It already has made print-on-demand a thriving industry, and it promises to make books available from computers that will operate like ATM machines: log in, order electronically, and out comes a printed and bound volume. Perhaps someday a text on a hand-held screen will please the eye as thoroughly as a page of a codex produced two thousand years ago.
Meanwhile, I say: shore up the library. Stock it with printed matter. Reinforce its reading rooms. But don't think of it as a warehouse or a museum. While dispensing books, most research libraries operate as nerve centers for transmitting electronic impulses. They acquire data sets, maintain digital re-positories, provide access to e-journals, and orchestrate information systems that reach deep into laboratories as well as studies. Many of them are sharing their intellectual wealth with the rest of the world by permitting Google to digitize their printed collections. Therefore, I also say: long live Google, but don't count on it living long enough to replace that venerable building with the Corinthian columns. As a citadel of learning and as a platform for adventure on the Internet, the research library still deserves to stand at the center of the campus, preserving the past and accumulating energy for the future.
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andrewjb
Although it is to be hoped that the publishers, authors, and Google will settle
their dispute, it is difficult to see how copyright will cease to pose a problem
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jimbeau
4. Companies decline rapidly in the fast-changing environment of electronic technology.
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beahgo
Electronic enterprises come and go. Research libraries last for centuries. Better to fortify them than to declare them obsolete, because obsolescence is built into the electronic media.
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bibliothecaire
Electronic enterprises come and go. Research libraries last for centuries. Better to fortify them than to declare them obsolete
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beahgo
5. Google will make mistakes.
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beahgo
Once we believed that microfilm would solve the problem of preserving texts. Now we know better.
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beahgo
6. As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that Google's copies will last.
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beahgo
all texts "born digital" belong to an endangered species
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beahgo
Unless the vexatious problem of digital preservation is solved, all texts "born digital" belong to an endangered species.
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bibliothecaire
Bits become degraded over time.
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enkerli
on 2008-08-04 by
enkerli
I'm quite sure this is inaccurate. The point is well-taken but its expression is misleading.
Nothing preserves texts better than ink imbedded in paper, especially paper manufactured before the nineteenth century, except texts written on parchment or engraved in stone. The best preservation system ever invented was the old-fashioned, pre-modern book.
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bibliothecaire
Companies decline rapidly in the fast-changing environment of electronic
technology
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jimbeau
7. Google plans to digitize many versions of each book, taking whatever it gets as the copies appear, assembly-line fashion, from the shelves; but will it make all of them available?
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beahgo
Google will make mistakes
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jimbeau
Google plans to digitize many versions of each book, taking whatever it gets as the copies appear, assembly-line fashion, from the shelves
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raluke
It now has a secret algorithm to rank Web pages according to the frequency of use among the pages linked to them, and presumably it will come up with some such algorithm in order to rank the demand for books. But nothing suggests that it will take account of the standards prescribed by bibliographers, such as the first edition to appear in print or the edition that corresponds most closely to the expressed intention of the author.
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bibliothecaire
As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that Google's copies will
last
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jimbeau
But nothing suggests that it will take account of the standards prescribed by bibliographers, such as the first edition to appear in print or the edition that corresponds most closely to the expressed intention of the author.
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beahgo
on 2008-08-04 by
enkerli
This sentence makes it sounds as if the algorithm were new yet PageRank was the very basis of Google, before the foundation of the company.
Google employs hundreds, perhaps thousands, of engineers but, as far as I know, not a single bibliographer. Its innocence of any visible concern for bibliography is particularly regrettable in that most texts, as I have just argued, were unstable throughout most of the history of printing.
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bibliothecaire
No single copy of an eighteenth-century best-seller will do justice to the endless variety of editions. Serious scholars will have to study and compare many editions, in the original versions, not in the digitized reproductions that Google will sort out according to criteria that probably will have nothing to do with bibliographical scholarship.
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beahgo
not a single bibliographer
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enkerli
on 2008-08-04 by
enkerli
This would bear verification. At the very least, Google probably collaborates with bibliographers (who may not be on its extensive payroll). If no blbliographer works on Google Book Search, there should be attempts on the part of bibliographers to make their ideas known to Google.
Google plans to digitize many versions of each book, taking whatever it gets as
the copies appear, assembly-line fashion, from the shelves; but will it make all
of them available
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jimbeau
8. Even if the digitized image on the computer screen is accurate, it will fail to capture crucial aspects of a book.
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beahgo
It is important to get the feel of a book—the texture of its paper, the quality of its printing, the nature of its binding
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