futureofthebook.com
preservation and persistence of the changing book

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library school students interview FotB

Q: What will be the continuing role of print in the context of digital research, especially in instances where the whole text of the print is imaged and available on-line?

FotB:As a starting point, why not assume that print will increasingly backup digital delivery? Lack of storage space is an excuse, rather than a rational, for limiting such a continuing role for print. Cooperative storage and shared repositories of paper collections create, rather than consume, storage space. This paradox is realized as last copy registration enables weeding of general collections. Leaf mastering or retention of print for on-demand scanning, elevates, rather than diminishes, the status of print. In addition to last copy registration, increased security and storage environments and trusted retention accord a credible backup role to print.

Q: Do print collections have inherent attributes in the context of digital delivery?

FotB:All printed materials are originals and all screen drawings are copies. Print leaf master better controls authentication and augmentation or commercialization of content and it simplifies access rights and privileges when compared with digital surrogates.

Print materials have inherent legibility while screen legibility is impaired by loading delays, browser errors, navigational interruptions, and unwanted pop-ups. Such impediments 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.

Print materials have persistence. Because the burdensome obligation of long term preservation is primarily assigned to research libraries and other intellectual property custodians, print can be given a leaf master status. In the leaf master concept, paper copies are held primarily for on-demand scanning or for backup of image files. This continuing role is already established in ILL service. Also, paper preservation and its retrieval over time are less mediated and less expensive than such requirements for computer media. Print also provides haptic features that enhance learning and retention 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 book better engages the hands to prompt the mind. We recall read precepts in their physical location on the page of a specific book. Other fingerings of page turning and manipulations of book structure work as prompts to our progression through content. In contrast to the punctuation of the paper page, 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 book, the reader is the interface.

Q: Do print collections have attributes beyond inherent characteristics?

FotB: Print collections work well in tandem with digital research. Print materials lack search attributes and screen presented resources lack persistence. Utilized together they each tend to compensate each other’s deficiencies. But, such a hybrid use is not full evolved. Currently the scenarios for digital research involving books (i.e., Google Print) favor screen-to-print, and not print-to-screen routines. Use scenarios that visualize super session of print collections by digital surrogate are not as promising or as well indicated as continuing mutual enhancement.

Another, wider role of print is connected to its physical format and the physical place of the library. The strategic centrality of the library on campus is not distinguished by digital access, but by physical collections and their physical place. Crucial social behaviors, such as student peer learning outside of class, are well accommodated in context with the physical library and its print collections. Literacy instruction is discipline neutral and well situated in the library. The mandate of the library as a museum is not as compelling as the library as a setting for learning. The physical collections and the physical library engender scenarios for the centrality of the library on campus.

Finally, print cultivates a primary reading skill which with other classical reading skills of the verbal and visual domain are required, in their composite, to provide the needed on-line, screen based reading skill.

FotB interviewed by Iowa City newspaper

Q: Has there been a recent watershed moment in the digital revolution or have changes in the book been at an evolutionary rate?

FotB: The watershed moment occurred with the transition to keyboard type setting at the turn of the 20th century. The advent of the keyboard disconnected the compositor from the type and set the stage for computer based book production.

Q: Does the paper book have a future in a world in which more and more information is digitized?

FotB: The paper book has a promising future because more and more information is digitized. Screen based reading is different from print reading and the two behaviors encourage each other. There are differences in legibility, navigation and persistence, but the book and screen are being read together.

Q: So you are optimistic about the future of the book?

FotB: There has been no reason not to be.