In response to our final blog question, I would say that I would travel back a little more than a year, to the beginning of last year's winter term. This was the first time I encountered David Lankes' ideas about librarianship.
Now, in general, I think David Lankes is about as rad ad Carl Sagan (though maybe Caleb will dispute this), but one video in particular made me very uneasy. In fact, I still remember the mini-existential crisis it precipitated. I can't find the video right now, but it featured a short segment where Lankes is asking what codex books will be like in the future. Will they become collector's items, to be put on display and dusted carefully, though never opened and read? Will they become like candles, used very seldom to obtain a particular experience? Or will they simply disappear from our lives altogether, kept in museums (best case scenario) like stone tablets, used to teach kids about the funny ways in which we lived?
I was distressed. "That can't happen!", I thought. "I will make sure it doesn't happen!" I thought (though how, I had no idea). I was literally ready to mourn the demise of the book. I started counting how many people on public transit read from e-readers versus codex books. I started hoarding books in much the same way that gun enthusiasts in the US hoard rifles when they think the Democrats are about to pass some restrictive laws. As I said, I went into a mini-existential crisis.
So what would current-me say to my past-me? I would suggest she reads Paul Duguid's "Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book." This will enable the past-me to take a deep breath and listen. And then we can have a nice discussion about what reading actually means. Because I suspect that a future without codex books (which I don't foresee happening) might be a little less scary if the focus is on the act of reading. The "container" is definitely part of the reading experience, as we heard from Andrew Steeves. But there is more to reading than the feel of the binding, or the curl and scent of the pages, and fascinating experiments in textuality can be done with both paper and digital texts. Instead of worrying about the demise of the book, I would suggest to my past-self that exploring other textual formats will enable me to see the beauty in the diversity of reading ways. And I suspect that I will not need to defend codex books so fiercely if I see that they are not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
 |
| Read his "Atlas of New Librarianship" and "Expect More"! |
Now, in general, I think David Lankes is about as rad ad Carl Sagan (though maybe Caleb will dispute this), but one video in particular made me very uneasy. In fact, I still remember the mini-existential crisis it precipitated. I can't find the video right now, but it featured a short segment where Lankes is asking what codex books will be like in the future. Will they become collector's items, to be put on display and dusted carefully, though never opened and read? Will they become like candles, used very seldom to obtain a particular experience? Or will they simply disappear from our lives altogether, kept in museums (best case scenario) like stone tablets, used to teach kids about the funny ways in which we lived?
I was distressed. "That can't happen!", I thought. "I will make sure it doesn't happen!" I thought (though how, I had no idea). I was literally ready to mourn the demise of the book. I started counting how many people on public transit read from e-readers versus codex books. I started hoarding books in much the same way that gun enthusiasts in the US hoard rifles when they think the Democrats are about to pass some restrictive laws. As I said, I went into a mini-existential crisis.
So what would current-me say to my past-me? I would suggest she reads Paul Duguid's "Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book." This will enable the past-me to take a deep breath and listen. And then we can have a nice discussion about what reading actually means. Because I suspect that a future without codex books (which I don't foresee happening) might be a little less scary if the focus is on the act of reading. The "container" is definitely part of the reading experience, as we heard from Andrew Steeves. But there is more to reading than the feel of the binding, or the curl and scent of the pages, and fascinating experiments in textuality can be done with both paper and digital texts. Instead of worrying about the demise of the book, I would suggest to my past-self that exploring other textual formats will enable me to see the beauty in the diversity of reading ways. And I suspect that I will not need to defend codex books so fiercely if I see that they are not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Hey Polina,
ReplyDeleteLankes is for sure rad. I don't think that Sagan has a monopoly on it at all. And I am glad to see you taking an even shorter trip into the past than I did. Perhaps I just don't like long flights, because I am happy to go back only thirty years or so.
As far as a video on the end of the codex. I was wondering if you might have been thinking about a video that Eli Neiburger made? Sorry for the audio quality, but he does not seem to have another source.
Thanks, Caleb, that's the one! I guess I got them conflated in my mind because they both think libraries (in their current incarnation) are screwed, and they are both unafraid to speak their minds. :)
Delete