Online Symposium 

From The Book & The Computer -- Book Culture at the Crossroads, Muro Kenji, Editor in Chief

A Watershed Moment
Today, we are poised at a watershed moment for all of book culture. There has been nothing like this in over 500 years. Some have compared the advent of digital publishing technology to the Gutenberg revolution. Jason Epstein and Roger Chartier, both of whom we have interviewed for our online journal, have argued that electronic technology will have an even greater impact on the book than Gutenberg's printing press. At the same time, the phenomenon of globalization -- also made possible by digital technology -- has emerged as a threat to the richness and diversity of book culture. Even the future form of the book is in doubt. [read more]

Write on 

Omniglot: a guide to writing systems, is an amazing effort and website by Simon Ager

What is writing?

There are a number of different ways to describe writing and writing systems.

In the world's writing systems, Peter T. Daniels defines writing as:

a system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer.

In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writings Systems, Florian Coulmas defines a writing system as:

a set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way, with the purpose of recording messages which can be retrieved by everyone who knows the language in question and the rules by virtue of which its units are encoded in the writing system.

All writing systems use visible signs with one exception: Braille, the system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people. Hence the need to include tactile signs in the above definition.

In A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer argues that no one definition of writing can cover all the writing systems that exist and have ever existed. Instead he states that a 'complete writing' system should fullfill all the following criteria:

• Complete writing must have as its purpose communication;
• Complete writing must consist of artificial graphic marks on a durable or electronic surface;
• Complete writing must use marks that relate conventionally to articulate speech (the systematic arrangement of significant vocal sounds) or electronic programing in such a way that communication is achieved.

Book Clubs 

Bibliofuture: Librarian's Book Club

Selections for May - June 2001:

• The Myth of the Paperless Office by Abigail Sellen
• Scrolling Forward : Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age by David Levy

Previous selections

Of course you already heard this -- Oprah closes the book on clubs by Carrie Kirby

To the disappointment of the book industry, authors and readers, Oprah Winfrey said yesterday that she is ending her influential book club as a regular feature.

"It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share," Winfrey said in a brief release yesterday.

"I will continue featuring books on the 'Oprah Winfrey Show' when I feel they merit my heartfelt recommendation."

It is not clear how often Winfrey will introduce books on her show. Her spokeswoman would only say, "It's ending on a monthly basis."

Publishers are mourning the loss of a cash cow. [read more]

Where do you get your news? 

From the "Car Talk" guys -- Who Reads What and Why

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

Nick Baker 

Via Library Juice, Thoughts on the reaction to Nicholson Baker's Double Fold: Letters from Lincoln Cushing

Books demise predicted -- again? 

The end of books? by Simon Midgley

Could the advent of electronic texts mark the death of books, for so long the staple fare of university libraries and college students? This will be one of the key discussions at a major conference on the future of textbooks at London's City University tomorrow.

Publishers, university librarians, authors and vice-chancellors are meeting to explore the issues facing academic publishing in the wake of the internet, digital publishing and the government's ambition to increase the number of 18-year-olds participating in higher education to 50% by 2006. [read more]

Not one email in support -- Take that Sen. Hollings 

Digital-copyright bill inspires flurry of criticism by Andy Sullivan

A digital-copyright bill introduced last month has inspired howls of protest from consumers and high-tech firms who say it could slow technological advances and dictate how consumers listen to music or watch videos at home.

Well-connected lobbyists and everyday users alike have flooded Congress with faxes and e-mails over the last several weeks to lodge complaints against a bill that would prevent new computers, CD players and other consumer-electronics devices from playing unauthorized movies, music and other digital media files.

Sen. Ernest Hollings' bill is backed by media firms such as The Walt Disney Co., who fear fast Internet connections and an array of digital devices such as MP3 players and CD burners will encourage consumers to seek free copies of hit singles and new movies.

The South Carolina Democrat has said he introduced the bill to encourage media and technology firms to work together to stop digital piracy.

Instead, it has inspired a flurry of criticism.

A grass-roots group called DigitalConsumer.org, which did not exist a month ago, claims to have signed up 24,000 members, who have sent off 80,000 faxes to their elected representatives. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has also held hearings on the issue, has received more than 3,500 comments criticizing the bill, a spokeswoman said.

"We haven't received one e-mail in support of the Hollings bill," said Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Mimi Devlin. "It seems like there's a groundswell of support from regular users." [read more]

Amazon goes into the recycling business 

Unloading His Books, but Not His Conscience by Fred Bernstein

A few weeks ago a friend carried a pile of dusty volumes to the Strand, the used-book store in Greenwich Village, to trade clutter for cash. "I would never do that," I thought snootily, as I pictured him haggling over the value of a dog-eared copy of "The Internet for Dummies."

And then I logged on to Amazon.com (news/quote) to buy a book and was startled to see: "Fred A. Bernstein, make $436.32. Sell your past purchases at Amazon.com today!" In an audacious gambit to expand its marketplace, Amazon has not only become a broker of used books but has also found a way to prime the pump: encouraging people who bought books on Amazon to resell them.

The $436.32 represented my potential take from the 25 books I had bought on Amazon since last July; Amazon's computer sees every one of those not just as a past sale but also as a future resale. I was intrigued. Perhaps I could do what my friend had done -- pick up some extra money, make space on my shelves -- without lifting a finger.

But as a book lover, I had misgivings, and it turns out I was not alone. This week, the Authors Guild protested Amazon's recycling program by asking its 8,200 members to remove links to Amazon from their Web sites. Authors, who are generally paid a commission for every book that publishers sell, make no money on resales. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, past president of the guild, said that Amazon's practice was "threatening the industry's ecological balance."

The very day that "China Dawn," a book about the Internet revolution in China, went on sale last month, Amazon was offering used copies (at a substantial discount) almost as prominently as new ones. "Either there are a lot of speed readers out there," said the author, David Sheff, "or people are selling advance copies." [read more]

Score 1 for privacy 

Court uphold privacy of book buyers: Retailer can refuse to turn over records by David G. Savage

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects the privacy of both bookstore owners and their customers when it refused yesterday to force a Denver retailer to turn sales records over to police.

Legal experts predicted that the decision would slow, if not halt, the recent trend of investigators seeking records of book purchases or video rentals as a quick way to track suspects or bolster a prosecution.

Four years ago, independent counsel Kenneth Starr surprised booksellers when he subpoenaed the records of a Washington, D.C., store, seeking information on purchases made by Monica Lewinsky.

Since then, there has been "an alarming increase in the number of bookstore subpoenas and search warrants" -- including requests to online booksellers -- said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

But the bookstore owners have fought back, and they won an important victory yesterday. [read more]

Reading 

Enjoy the miracle of reading - soon and often by Herbert Siegel

Before the invention of paper, the thin inner bark of certain trees was used as a writing tablet. In Latin, this bark was called liber, which in time also came to signify a a "book." Hence, our library, the place for books, and librarian, the keeper of books. Books are the keepers of words, the tools of communication that elevate us above all other life forms on Earth.

Although the role of today's public library has been greatly expanded to accommodate advanced technology such as computers, DVDs and the like -- all beneficial for its patrons -- the very core of this institution is, in a word, words. Which returns us to the book, miracle-worker that it is, through the means called reading. [read more]

On the web vs. in print 

'Why Do We Need to Keep This in Print? It's on the Web ...': a Review of Electronic Archiving Issues and Problems by Dorothy Warner

Indeed! It may be on the web today, but is there a plan in place to ensure that it will be there in twenty or more years? Probably not. In the haste to make information available electronically there are few agreed-upon plans for the preservation of digital information and much has already been lost. The particular concern of preserving electronic state government documents recently became an issue for our State Documents Interest Group of the Documents Association of New Jersey (DANJ) when we recognized that not only are fewer documents produced in print format but there is not a state plan to preserve the electronic documents being produced. For several years the Division of Elections in New Jersey eliminated the web page that gave the previous year's election lists and results. Fortunately, the concern from those using the information prompted the Division of Elections to begin to retain this information. But the earlier information is gone. Recently, Public Utilities created a new web page and eliminated virtually all of the documents that had existed on the earlier page. At least one agency replaces its old annual report with the new one. The predicament in New Jersey is not an isolated one. Our response was to research the issue of digital preservation and to present a report of recommendations to the State Librarian. The report, edited by Sue Lyons (2001, available at the DANJ website), provides a thoughtful overview of the concerns and problems of digital archiving, offering recommendations for a cooperative process and plan by the state. In the report, Lyons cites several examples of lost digital information, including data from the Viking mission to Mars and all computerized data from a New York study mapping land use and environmental data throughout the state. [read more]

Medieval Manuscripts 

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts