Two Articles
Newsweek::"The Future of Reading," by Steven Levy
The book is the perfect technology, it doesn't need batteries, its hand-held,
there is no instruction manual, or hard drive, how could it possibly be
improved upon? Jeff Bezos thinks he did improve upon it with his new invention, "The Kindle,"
a hand-held e-book that uses amazing "e-ink"
technology that exactly duplicates ink on paper. This is a new type of ubiquitous computing,
a hand-held interface that downloads an entire library without a desktop computer using
whisperless Internet. Bezos understands that if you are going to improve upon the
greatest technology the world has ever seen, you not only have to meet its standards,
you also have to be better than it. "First, it must project an aura of bookishness;
it should be less of a whizzy gizmo than an austere vessel of culture (p. 57)."
(Like most ubiquitous technologies, it must blend in), the Kindle also has the same
dimension of a paperback, and the battery boasts a reading time of up to thirty hours.
Unlike a normal book, though, the Kindle allows you to change the font-size, and search
within your internal library through a single word or phrase. Best of all, and most
"ubiquitously," "the Kindle can venture out on the Web itself--to look up thinks
in Wikipedia, search via Google or follow links from blogs and other Web pages.
You can jot down
a gloss on the page of a book you're reading, or capture passages with an
electronic version of a highlight pen. And if you or a friend sends a word
document or PDF file to your private Kindle e-mail address, it appears in
your Kindle library, just as a book does ( p.58)." Just like a book, the
Kindle (and other ubiquitous devices) disappears.
The Kindle is more than just a new technology, though, "The Kindle represents
a milestone in a time of transition, when a challenged publishing industry is
competing with television, Guitar Hero and time burned on the Blackberry:
literary critics are bemoaning a possible demise of print culture....On the
other hand, there are vibrant pockets of book lovers on the Internet who are
waiting for a chance to refurbish the dusty halls of literacy (p. 57)." Bezos
would like you to be able to get any book in or out of print onto your Kindle
in less than a minute. Critics say that no one would ever sit down and read
a book off of a screen, but why wouldn't you? We read everything off of a
screen these days, from our mail to our work. Bezos understands the love of
a good book, but answers that it is not truly the book itself that we love.
He says, "Why do I love the smell of glue and ink? The answer is that I
associate that smell with all those worlds I have been transported to.
What we love is the words and ideas (p. 60)." The Kindle does not the end of print
culture, it could instead herald the beginnings of a revolution in printing.
Jeff Bezos has already helped revitalize the book-buying industry with Amazon
and now says that "Stuff doesn't need to go out of print," instead, the Kindle
will "shorten publishing cycles (p. 61)," making more items go either into print
or directly onto the Kindle. There are also hypertextual plans in the works to
allow readers to authorship of a book by subscribing to it while it is being written.
Readers could add to or correct non-fiction texts through Wikis, or find the excitement
in a novel as the author re-writes the ending.
The Kindle is an amazing part of what ubiquitous computing is bringing to technology.
It is part of the revolution in knowledge that has been going on for quite some
time for now, and a very exciting step in the digital world.
School Library Journal: April, 2007. "Do Books Still Matter?" by, Marc Aronson
This article looks at the ways young students get their information, (mainly via Google),
and examines how librarians, teachers and non-fiction authors can or should change
their practices. As in many articles and books of this type, the author answers
the question of whether books are going the way of the 8-track with a resounding, "NO!"
Instead, the Internet has been increasing literacy in children and adults. In this
article and the Newsweek article it is pointed out that people who spend their
time online actually read more than people who don't, not less. Also, while Web pages
can offer vast ammounts of information, a book can hold an entire argument, a much longer
narrative. Authors and readers still look to books to go more in-depth than Web pages
can. In terms of children, books can still hold more appeal. A lot of thought goes
into the craft of book-making, especially with children's books. The narrative
and the art-work draw the children in much better than a two-dimensional web-site.
Unless, of course that web-site involves gaming, which is a major concern
for educators and publishers. There are however, many educational games out there
that help children learn, including a version of Second Life that lets teens avatars
live through the American Revolution. While there are more appealing, less educational
games out there for children, it is still important to note that good games and good web-sites
still exist, if they are steered in the right direction. There should not be a fear that
just because kids are more used to visual stimuli than previous generations, and that
they expect those images everywhere that they will stay away from books. Instead,
"kids who are accustomed to picking and choosing their own forms of media accept books
as book--they don't need to resemble the Web. They just need to be good at being books
(p. 39)."
The digital world can make the print world even better, if not because the two are
being integrated, but also because the print world is scared of the digital world and
will thrive in competition. As Aronson wrote, "The digital world frees the print
world to do what it does best--present a crafted, composed, fully articulated argument
or story (p. 39)." There is no reason to worry about print culture.
(Especially not with The Kindle around).