Books and the Future
Comment#1: Benjamin E. Hermalin in his article entitled In Print: Scholarly Journal Publishing in the 21st Century explores the evolving format and medium of history publications. In addition Hermalin discusses the change associated with advancing technologies in regard to the arts and sciences. “First, a new technology improves the ways” asserts Hermalin, “in which old tasks are accomplished. Second, it expands what is possible, which leads to huge changes for society.” This statement is quite fundamental to tracing the evolution of text from the page to the web. It is important to note how the advancements in technology have not only improved accessibility but efficiency as well. As argued by Hermalin “print publication is often delayed because of poor oversight of the process: Editors fail to keep track of papers as they go through the review process, reviewers are not reminded to complete reviews, and so forth. The Internet makes possible a Web-based back-office solution that improves tracking and speeds the process.”
Comment#2: Clifford Lynch discusses, in the section of his article entitled Digital Books as Literal Translations of Printed Books, the numerous issues with digitization of books. Lynch contends, “current computer display technologies do not offer a pleasant environment for reading very long texts when compared to ink on paper.” This statement exemplifies the frustrations of many graduate students today. Often professors will assign lengthy articles that are only available online. Reading these forms of text is not only straining to ones eyes, but is not easily navigated, particularly if it is in PDF form. What I mean by this is that one cannot copy text from PDF files into word in text form nor is it simple to scroll through each page without passing over unread text; losing ones place is an often occurrence when working within Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Comment#3: In The Bookless Future: What the Internet is Doing to Scholarship David Bell discusses the uncertain future of printed text as well as the unnatural act of reading text on a screen. Bell states that, “most screens remain wider than they are long, unlike printed book pages. Most computers make it easier to scroll down, line by line, than to page through a text. And screens are by no means as portable or as comfortable to hold as books. Personal digital assistants (PDA’s), while more comfortable, display very little text at a time.” Bell is right on the mark with this argument. Technology has often contributed to the reality of portability however in the case of text, one could argue that, it has not served to be as fruitful.
March 7th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
There are definite drawbacks to adobe acrobat reader, but there are improvements coming. The newer documents created for acrobat reader allow for searching of the document, as well as copying pieces of the text (assuming it isn’t a picture of the text).