dual display halfway there
Dual display, with permutations of flip scroll and side-by-side reference, begins to mime the codex. Kindle type page-by-page navigation is not a basis for codex handling or even diptych spread.
beyond textbooks
"The Industrial Book is a stunning work of compilation and erudition. It succeeds in delineating the cultural, political, social, and economic history of the mid-nineteenth-century book while also capturing the intellectual vitality and innovation that characterizes this increasingly influential field of study."
--Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
A History of the Book In America is a five volume project with volume 3, "The industrial Book, 1840-1880", now in print. This is a wonderful, layered encyclopedia of graceful essays, with revealing interpretation of the role of books as material culture. Four other book history readers, companions and introductions have also appeared, one now in second edition, since 2002. These publications will act inside and out of classrooms, supporting the research agendas, ulterior motives and specialized interpretation of any reader's interest in book studies.
"Reading is at once one of the most ubiquitous and one of the most elusive of human activities." Shafquat Towheed
Abstract
"In this paper I would like to explicate the theoretical principles that underlie the electronic hyper-text edition of Constantijn Huygens’ Ooghentroost. The governing idea behind the project is the hypothesis, formulated by Jerome McGann, that new technologies of textual presentation may enable us to derive a clearer understanding of traditional, early-modern notions and practices of textuality." Jurgen Pieters
Abstract
"As a result, at least to a certain extent, the e-book became part of history of printed book and rather than the opposite." Miha Kovac
Abstract
top down, face up
the planetary capture format with the book in up-right reading position and the scanner overhead has long been the conservators' preferred alternative to flip-flop of books on copiers. Face up copying is just like reading; speedy, kinetically easy and intuitive.
The Minolta DPS 3000 introduced the hope of non-damaging capture from bound materials. We got one for the preservation department almost ten years ago. It was riddled with video errors and was a black, bi-tonal scanner with a crippled grey scale capability. But it was a Streamliner; top-down.
Now we have a new Zeutschel OS12000. It is an even more elegant Streamliner. It is a color scanner with software that can intermingle insets at various bit levels. The Zeutschel is very smart. On its first scann it overshot the easel and pictured our shoes as it tried to learn something about its new coworkers. It doesn't just capture, it observes.
And the variety and quantity of capture from tangible collections is increasing rapidly. Simulation is the new way of reading and the Zeutschel is the new reader. But with a backward glance, the old Minolta went to the interlibrary loan department where it will labor on, on-demand. Perhaps it is the real reader, sending a page or two from print to screen and never, never looking back.
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