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Future of the Booke

Introduction

The traditional paper book is now a product of digital production and digital access systems. Paper output from digital sources is exemplified by the print on demand industry which now promises to dominate the future of book publishing. In a few decades, most people will imagine that the codex is an invention of digital technologies. And that will be somewhat true.

The Cascade of Reading Modes

Reading behaviors are also changing without changing traditional formats. A cascade of multiple and intermingling reading modes persists across time and cultures regardless of the technologies that intermingle them. Such an assumption positions interactions of parent modes of orality, writing and print throughout history and into the future. (1.)

The cascade flows from the top of the page to the bottom, across time. Primary orality, or the verbal/visual mode, is the earliest parent mode. This page top position reflects a time before writing or printing, but such a circumstance has persisted in some societies into the present. Contemporary oral communications are illustrated by rapping and blogging. So the mode of orality is shown throughout the cascade. Specific historical episodes correspond to orality in a content of writing and printing, in a context of radio, television and telephone as well as in a post-modern setting.

The second parent mode of reading transactions is the writing mode. Here again the mode cascades in relation to surrounding communication economies. The writing to print relationship cascades from the manuscript era to the word processing era and continues into the time of e-mail.

The third mode is print. This communication economy is know for multiplication of copies and the various library arrangements of content to create important accessory meanings between books. Note how the print mode persists, pacing other developments, with the advent of print on demand and with a continuing trend to produce paper copy in highly computer connected societies.

Finally, note the composite, on-line mode. This curious episode in the intermingling of the reading modes is specifically dated to our own time. The event appears to be distinct enough to differentiate the composite, screen based reading mode as equivalent to the status of a parent reading reading mode. But is this new composite mode, which is able to mimic and intermingle each of the verbal, written and print modes, actually an equivalent of each? The contest between the booke vs. ebook indicates otherwise.

Booke vs. eBook in the Cascade

Advocates for the screen based monograph, excuse the failure of ebook acceptance with the explanation that “people just don’t like to read from the screen”. Actually, people love to read from the screen, as the popularity of all types of digital connectivities illustrate. On the other side, advocates of the print monograph emote that nothing else will do in their reading temperaments of “bed, beach and bath”. But, of course, reading needs and reading environments are everywhere and many exclude bookes.

What is apparent is that two separate formats of bookes and ebooks are riding the cascade of the reading modes. Granting that let’s look at some authentic differences between the two reading devises. (2.) We will compare characteristics of legibility, persistence and haptic efficiency.

Legibility

The first consideration in the comparison of booke vs. ebook is legibility where legibility is measured in immediacy and clarity of the meaning of the content.

Lack of legibility of the composite, on-line reading mode results from slow system transmission, broken links and browser errors. On-line presentations are authentically illegible as the reader, disconnected, watches a download monitor or waits as the browser fails to draw an overlayed text block. Other illegibilities are presented by interrupting sign-in or registration screens, to say nothing of unrequested pop-ups. Finally, navigational transactions continually interrupt reading.

Such impediments to comprehension will be dismissed by on-line reading advocates as temporary deficiencies correctable by the advance of technologies of connectivity. But the reverse appears to be happening. Link rot, application up-grades, email congestion and system cut-overs all load further illegibility to on-screen reading. Meanwhile the booke maintains its well refined legibility across immense technological advances.

Persistence

In the booke vs. ebook contest there are differences of persistence or pacing of the reading transaction. An on-line search result is expected in a fraction of a second, but Amazon.com is not concerned that the physical booke arrives the next day or even the second day. It turns out that the reader of the booke is already reading another, and so is preoccupied enough for the waiting period to disappear.

Differences in persistence of texts can be immense. Those reading in the composite, screen based mode navigate to the most recent posting first and each discussion thread is posed in the present moment. The inherent persistence of a stored booke, though not considered in the transactions of the on-line reading mode, eventually becomes consequential if on-line research and digital scholarship aspires to book equivalence.

The papyrus codex delivered Gnostic gospels to receptive researchers exactly on time, sixteen centuries later. The screen based mode assures access over much shorter periods. Backward software compatibility expires in five years. In terms of reliable transmission of content across time, which technology, the papyrus booke or computer media, is more advanced?

The library, over time, illustrates changes in the persistence of access. Libraries of Antiquity were established for preservation of texts. Only later did libraries turn to accommodate reading. As reading and the use of libraries by readers increased the original preservation function became less apparent. Ultimately readers began to consume libraries and expect a continual renovation of library stock. Modes of access became dynamic as well. Finally, in an era of electronic reading, libraries of ephemeral, transient and mutable resources emerged.

Fortunately, the preservation mission is embedded in library service. Unfortunately, a failure of libraries to preserve digital resources can discredit their preservation mission. The needed realization is that persistence differs in the print vs. screen based reading modes.

Haptics

An important difference between hand held reading devices, either booke or ebook, is haptic difference. The haptic feature most embedded in the booke is that of conveying concepts as if they were physical projectiles.

The hominid species differentiated themselves by an innovative behavior of projectile predation or throwing of rocks. This one arm behavior and its endless practice led to the bilaterally asymmetric development of the human brain. As a result, we are the only species that is either right or left handed and we are the only species with a resulting multiplicity of options for assignment of mental tasks.

These cognitive capacities enabled the grasping and tossing of concepts. ”Indeed, planning a throw has some nested stages, strongly reminiscent of syntax.” (3.) Books do not fly across time and cultures; they are thrown. The author weighs each concept, calculates their trajectories, carefully aims and releases with the hope of stunning the target. (4.)

Secondary haptic features of the booke follow as the hands prompt the mind in an ergonomic of comprehension. At first it is odd that concepts should be conveyed by physical objects. Electronic transmission better mimics the neural connectivity of the mind, but the physical booke better engages the hands to prompt the mind. We always recall read precepts in their physical location on the page of a specific booke. Other fingerings of page turning and manipulations of booke structure work as prompts to our progression through content.

In contrast to the manual punctuation of the page and the physical clock of content of the codex, the on-line page is manipulated with impaired haptic feedback. The “previous/next” click, the cursor slider and scroll tabs utilize grip and finger motion directed to the mouse and keyboard, but not to the substrate of the text. At least two other layers of interruption intervene. There is the electrified, rather than manual, instigation and an indirect interfacing via the navigational software. With a booke, the reader is the interface.

Fixed Future of the Booke and the eBook

The contrasts that we have discussed are, perhaps, consistent enough to indicate a fixed future of the print mode as conveyed in a paper book. Another possible conclusion is that the composite, screen based reading mode is still an accessory of the parent print mode, not the other way around. (5.)

The scenario in which digital resources supplant print resources has not occurred. The explanation for the overlaps, including "inside the book" engines, is that the digital resources integrate and therefore can mimic all the reading modes. But their superiority, beyond the technological achievement of simultaneously screening verbal, written and print modes into a readable matrix, is overrated. For one thing the richness of expression of the visual/verbal mode is not approached, the conceptual exercise of the written mode is not fully required and the permanence and systematic accumulation of the print mode are not achieved. Digital research is still an accessory of the parent reading modes.

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References

(1.) For a narrative of changing and persisting reading behaviors see; Chartier, Roger, The Order of Books, Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Stanford University Press, 1994.

(2.) For an expert analysis of relations of the booke and ebook see; Drucker, Johanna, “The Virtual Codex from Page Space to E-Space”, (lecture, 2002), <http://www.philobiblon.com/drucker/>

(3.) Calvin, William, A Brief History of the Mind, Oxford University Press, 2004.

(4.) For neurological relationship between projectile predation and capacity for management of concepts see; Calvin, William, “The unitary hypothesis: A common neural circuity for novel manipulations, language, plan-ahead, and throwing?” in Tools, Language, and Cognition in Human Evolution, edited by Gibson, Kathleen R. and Ingold, Tim, Cambridge University press, 1993.

(5.) For longer discussion of booke vs. ebook and complete bibliography see; <www.futureofthebook.com>