Sunday, May 14, 2006
Book vs. Screen
There is an interesting article in the NY Times magazine about the ongoing effort to digitize the world's libraries. It's a bit blue-sky for my general taste, but still thought-provoking in terms of what major shifts may be on the way, the battle between Google, other online content providers, and copyright holders, and the changes in business models that is coming about. I am reminded of a talk that I saw Alan Kay give once on the topic of "The Origin of Creative Thought." When it came to printing, he said the real innovation was not the Gutenberg press, which produced books that were huge and displayed in secure locations with chains attached to them, but was Aldus, the guy who came up with the idea of publishing books that would fit in saddlebags and could easily move from place to place. Another ten years or so should make it all clearer.
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2 comments:
I'm thinking that idea is not going to catch on, at least not for me. I just can't get used to reading lengthy text from a screen. I usually print out something more than 3 pages, and at the rate my equipment loads text its quicker to go to the book store.
I agree from a book reading perspective, but a lot will change over time. When you couple ubiquitous wireless access with a real eBook reader something like this, and the kinds of wacky ways to link books and reading lists together like was being discussed in the article, I can see myself taking this handy device to the beach to read rather than a stack of paperbacks. Right now there is just no real content out there in digital form, and I would rather read current stuff than old out-of-copyright stuff. Anyway, it will be a brave new nearly unrecognizable world in the realm of information access by the time Danny is as old as we are.
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