John
>Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:02:14 +0000 (GMT)
>Reply-To: willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
>Sender: owner-humanist@lists.princeton.edu
>From: WILLARD MCCARTY <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
>To: Humanist Discussion Group <humanist@lists.princeton.edu>
>Subject: 10.0367 real books (part 1 of 2)
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> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 10, No. 367.
> Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> Information at http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/
>
> [1] From: Greg Lessard <lessard@francais.QueensU.CA> (114)
> Subject: Re: 'Real' books
>
>
>Sorry for the delay in replying to the various postings: it's been one
>of those weeks. There are one or two points I'd like to clarify, and a
>distinction or two to make. Also, sorry for the length. To steal from
>Pascal, if I had more time, I'd make this shorter!
>
>1. Technology/technology, Book/book
>
>It's probably important to distinguish two senses here. On the one hand
>there's big-t technology versus little-t technology, and on the other
>big-b book and little-b book. The first refers to the conceptual
>categorization of a set of tools, the second to a particular
>manifestation of these tools. So we can talk about the Technology of the
>Book, meaning sequentially bound sheets, and the technology of a book,
>meaning the particular stack of bound sheets in front of me just now.=20
>
>Similarly, we can refer to the Technology of the Computer (meaning some
>input mechanism, some processing and some output) as well as to the
>particular technology of a particular computer (for example, a 486 100
>Mhz machine running Windows95, with a .28 14" screen, etc.). So when
>Willard writes:
>
> Where I think the case for replacement is dubious is when the
> computer is being used to model an activity for which it is
> inherently unsuited, grossly overpowered, or both. If one is
> READING a text rather than consulting it, why use a computer,
> which at least now is too bulky to be very convenient, produces a
> low-resolution image, and costs money to run? Seems silly to me.
>
>he's talking sometimes about Technology and sometimes about technology.
>The same tension occurs in Marta Steele's reply:
>
> You can't pull an online publication off your shelf to show a
> friend the book you've just published, nor will it sport a
> custom-designed jacket with an artist's rendition of your theme.
> It will not last a hundred years or more if well tended to;
> maximum life of disks is at this point 25 years if you're lucky,
> but we're always warned to back things up, etc., so I'd be wary
> of that figure. When you publish something and have slaved years
> over it, do you want to call it up on a screen as flickering
> waves or admire something that is visually appealing and
> tangible?
>
>Yet it's crucial to keep the two senses distinct. Take the case of
>Book/book. The Book has an advantage over the Scroll by offering non-
>sequential access (compare Tape and CD). However, the Book has problems
>with reordering or textual manipulation. To test this, take Queneau's
>"Cent mille milliards de po=E8mes" out of your library. This is a book
>with slices of paper on each page, each of which contains a line of a
>poem. Different slices can be folded up giving the indicated number of
>total poems. This book pushes the limits of the Book; as a book, it's
>also likely to be torn and taped. As a Book, it manages to give some
>limited freedom, but doesn't allow, for example, reordering lines within
>the same poem. On the other hand, another Technology like hypertext does
>this easily, even if the technology (a six-pound laptop, for example)
>still has shortcomings.
>
>In short, we may have qualms about a technology, but we shouldn't let
>this distract us from considering the Technology it exemplifies and
>asking ourselves what its limits might be.
>
>2. Reading
>
>Drawing on old work in lexicography, let's distinguish three
>perspectives on texts: consultative (looking up), discursive (reading
>sequences of text) and esthetic (textual pleasure). One doesn't exclude
>the others, but together, they allow us to characterize our ways of
>dealing with varieties of texts. Consider the following table:
>
> consult. discurs. esthet.
>
>library catalogue + - -
>dictionary + - -
>encyclopedia + + -
>journal article + + -
>scholarly book + + -
>novel - + +
>
>On the surface, this looks nicely clean. We consult library catalogues,
>but not novels. We treat novels as esthetic objects, but don't do the
>same for dictionaries. But wait: some people would claim that Diderot's
>Encyclop=E9die is an esthetic object. A number of authors of scholarly
>books would consider that their work has important esthetic facets. How
>about the numerous queries on HUMANIST itself asking which x said y, or
>where x said y? Is this not consulting? Or how about a collection of
>poetry? Do we ever consult it? So there appears to be some fuzziness
>here.
>
>Now, we all know that there is a technologizing wave moving along which
>has swallowed up library catalogues, most of dictionaries, most of
>encyclopedias, is working on journals, and starting on textbooks. Should
>we assume that this wave will be halted by the novel, or by books of
>poetry because they are FUNDAMENTALLY different from other sorts of
>text? My own expectation is that with the exception of books as art-
>form, as described by Matthew Kirschenbaum, novels, textbooks and
>scholarly works on paper will be essentially gone twenty years from now.
>(Ask me again in 2016!) There are already hints around. I recently
>stopped at a business supply store with a sideline in computing software
>and hardware. They were selling a CD-ROM containing 350 stories (the
>usual classics) for $24.95. I suspect that this will increase.
>
>3. Attitudes
>
>Willard worries that by concentrating on the electronic book, we cater
>to only a fraction of the population. As he puts it: "Developed-nation
>myopia is a seriously debilitating condition!" I would reply that we
>can't change the world, but we can push or pull in one direction or
>another. I'm also reminded of the discussion which took place in Canada
>a number of years ago when the metric system was first proposed. There
>were three groups at least to be found:
>
>a) proponents of the new system who claimed that whatever its current
>shortcomings, it was essentially superior to the imperial system;
>
>b) opponents who resisted any change to a system which had worked
>reasonably well for a long time;
>
>c) the indifferent.
>
>Now that the metric system has been adopted, we find layers of
>generations. To grossly simplify, there are:
>
>- the young, who know only metric
>- the middle-aged, who know both metric and imperial
>- the old, who know only imperial
>
>I am struck by the analogy with the introduction of electronic
>technology in the humanities. What concerns me is that in the replies to
>date, I don't see much evidence of attitude a) when it comes to
>electronic books. Are we all too old (or at least middle-aged)? Or
>should we see it as our duty as computing humanists to push the limits
>of information Technology, which means trying it out every chance we
>get? After all, (1) it's fun, and (2) if we don't, who will?
>
>
>
>
>