Question #5 - Final Assignment

For this weeks blog question I would like to discuss how Andrew Steeve’s lecture got me to start thinking about topics for my final essay. I just want to start off by saying how inspiring and informative I thought Andrews talk was. Although I am not in the book history stream here at the  iSchool, I was fortunate enough to have book history classes available in my undergrad at YorkU. I was always particularly interested in the different ways books have been looked upon throughout history and instead of looking specifically at the history of books, for this assignment I thought it might be interesting to examine how the digital environment has altered the traditional role of the paper based book.
I found it interesting when Andrew discussed the issue of there being an increase in accessibility, but readability has unfortunately decreased. Because of technology our ability to sit and read has been altered.  I also found it interesting when someone from class commented about books being sold at farmers markets and really, whether or not it could be successful. It got me thinking about peoples appreciation for well made local products. As the book as an object continues to become more obsolete, it may be interesting to look into ways people are actively going against, or in the least, trying to offer alternatives to the generic digital versions of books. Sort of in the same way as when there was a yearning for nostalgic physical types of photography after the boom of digital cameras and phone cameras. Even though the technology changed photography to be much more accessible, it still has not completely abolished the original form of photos. There are still people willing to fight to keep it alive, for example, The Impossible Project (a photography collective in New York) saved the last Polaroid production plant and started to produce new film thus, saving analog instant photography from extinction. What I’m thinking for my final paper is maybe looking into the ways in which independent publishing houses, used book stores, and artists are doing similar things to save the book as an object from becoming extinct.