trust in paper
Florida is returning to
paper ballots. The excursion into touch screen has proven that touching the screen is not sufficent for maintenance of democratic governance.
So does the contrast between screen and paper readership also play into the maintenance of knowledge generally? It is worth realizing that mutability and a living dynamic of texts is germinated by their printing to paper. This is not a contradiction; persistent variation and differing evidence based interpretation invigorates books.
text voice and distributed power point
A recent FotB
illustrated lecture on aesthetics of book conservation is better than ever.
building a second life in first life
FotB has long been projecting the fantasy reassertion of print in a context of its presumed eclipse. Now
SLArt magazine begins this backward summersault, complete with advertizing rate card. Listen to Richard explain the situation.
The new physical book is changing within a momentum of digital authoring modes, connected writing environments and self-publishing technologies. The previous book changed too.
full speed ahead
"From my own modest experience here at the AHA, I know how hard it is to go back and correct mistakes online when the imperative is always to move forward, to add content and inevitably pile more mistakes on top of the ones already buried one or two layers down. With Google adding in more than 3,000 new books each day, the growth in the number of mistakes seems that much higher.
I find it increasingly hard to believe that Google can add tens of thousands of additional books each month to the information pile—many containing basic mistakes in content and metadata—and the information results will actually grow better over time." Robert Townsend
Google Books: What's Not to Like?
tipping point
"Politics gets interesting when it stops raining."
NYTimes
Mobilization of progressive government in a context of global warming is not inevitable, but is happening. Similarly, reassertion of a progressive future of print in a context of screen reading, is not inevitable, but is happening.
But what prefigures drought without paper books? Among other attributes, is there a need to convey the second life in physical objects? Some deep, embedded desire? And are there digital technology and screen based paths to reassertion of the physical book? Countering fire and ice with fire and ice?
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