The Horseless Library

I think what is happening with the networked books debate is
that Kelly and Jeff Jarvis and the other luminaries of the future book crowd
have heretofore mostly been preaching to the choir. Their exhortations and
descriptions of what could happen ? too often unfortunately and naively phrased
as what will happen ? have fallen on receptive ears and screens via
Wired and If: Book and venues like that. So when the conversation went beyond
those safe and already converted crowds to the population at large, things all
of a sudden got messy. Not everyone by a long shot agreed with the script being
written. And then to be very publicly rebuked and soundly dressed down by a figure
like John Updike, who carries far more cultural and intellectual capital among
a wider swath than Kelly or Jarvis can lay claim to, well, it probably stung like the
dickens.

Here are some quotes from discussions taking place on If:
book. Speberg?s comments are what led me to believe that they had never really
had any real dissension before.

For Updike and all those unable to cross into the
new Canaan of electronicity, the apotheosis of the artist fits into the
tradition of history as a history of heroes?

But it doesn't seem fruitful to talk about Updike's
writing or rank in the Top 100 Writers list. Instead, let me repeat that his
remarks clearly demonstrate a complete lack of shared values, language and
experience with those who are interested
in moving to the book we will all read in the future. [Emphasis mine ? the future
is already worked out and decided upon by Roger Sperberg. 'We will all read...' Nice to know.]

To paraphrase something I wrote elsewhere the books in the Library of the Future will be [there's that will be again] more like Paul
Ford?s Ftrain than like anything in Updike's
oeuvre. Everything he writes, however brilliant it is in comparison to
contemporary work, will appear to the future as flat and two-dimensional as all
the art before Giotto and Duccio. Updike doesn't know how to access those other
dimensions (me neither ? but at least I'm aware of them) and he will always be
on the one side of a very clear demarcation in the history of writing.

That?s pretty strong determinist thinking there. It could be
true. But it isn?t guaranteed by a long shot. If there?s one thing I try to
avoid doing, it?s predicting the future. We were all supposed to be taking
trips to the moon in our private rockets for vacations by now too and living in
those dreadful Modernist concrete monstrosities designed by Le Corbusier.

Now compare that to the following thoughtful piece, also
posted on If: Books. Eddie Tejeda, whoever he is, is clearly thinking about books. Sperberg by
comparison has an agenda that has been disrupted.

I really enjoyed Updike's essay. I don't think he
is either denying what is happening to the book (the "book" as we
know it) and I do not think he is on a crusade to try and save the book. I
think he is simply acknowledging the changes to the book and I think he has a
honest concern of what might lost in the transition of moving ideas to the web,
especially from someone who's life has been about books.

I don't think he is trying to hold back what
appears to be progress the way we share ideas. The benefits of the web are
enormous! and it's hard to imagine ever trying to revert it...

But, like Updike, who doesn't acknowledge what is
gained, I think it's important to also acknowledge what might be lost. I often
say that I read the news, facts and interesting ideas on the web all day and I
am rarely satisfied! Thats my life. That is what I do. I read stuff on the web.
Usually interesting stuff. But when I pick up one book, my life changes. Almost
every time! When I finish a (good) book it almost always has a profound effect
of me. I think about the ideas in the book a lot! And the thoughts never fade. Books change the way I think. The internet
fills me up with facts. [emphasis mine]

In the web I can read about the Ottoman Empires, I
find out who acted in what movie, and I can find out details on the collapse of
the Argentinean economy in seconds, and now I often say I have a hard time
imagining not having the internet to answer many of my questions. I joke: Before
the internet, what did people do when someone said an ambiguous or incorrect
statement? Unless you bothered going to the library every time someone said a
strange "fact", how would you know if it's true? Did you just accept
it? Who bothered doing "research"? That world now seems distant to
me.

But I wonder, as it appears Updike does, wether
that profound moment you have after reading book is lost. Will it be replaced
with technology? maybe... until then..I think it's fair to lament what might be
lost.

Thanks Eddie for helping me think a bit too. I think we may gain lots of good new things with networked books and lots of them we probably haven't yet anticipated, but it doesn't mean we have to, or want to, throw away or give up what's already good about books now. It doesn't have to be an absolutist one or the other kind of situation. That just doesn't make sense.

Comments:

Tejeda's comments resonate with me when I think about art photography.

Gallery exhibitions are nice, you can see individual photographs in their original form, enlarged for full effect. Some exhibitions work better then others. Depends on the photographs. Unfortunately, I'm not able to make it to many exhibitions these days.

Flickr is amazing. Lots of cruft, but also lots of good work on there from "amateurs". Search and tags provide so many ways to slice across the massive collection of images. It's amazing to see the diversity of images being produced.

But when I think about the most powerful experiences I've had of other people's photography, I think of the photo book (aka photo essay or monograph). Why? A big part is the selection and sequencing of images. The fixed form of a bound book requires additional creativity to be injected to the work in the form of editing. A quality photo book is greater than the sum of the photographs contained within it. It is something I can pull off the bookshelf and re-experience again many years later in its original form at a different point in my life. This affordance is important to me.

Posted by Tito Sierra on July 11, 2006 at 10:58 AM EDT #

I, too, have been frustrated by this book vs network debate, as if everything is going to be one way or the other. A bit of nuance is welcome.

My pleasure in books (and perhaps the reason they seem more meaningful to Eddie Tejada) is that book-reading is usually a focused, concentrated activity. Reading on the internet is not only more physically difficult, given the current state of our flickering screens, but it also invites more interruptions. The book in my hands at home doesn't "ping" when I've received an email. Nor does it propose that I abandon it by clicking to a completely different work. Books connect to other works by virtue of argument or allusion, not just by an inserted mechanism. I appreciate the care required of both the writer and the reader.

Here's hoping we won't end up in a bookfree future.

Posted by Monica McCormick on July 11, 2006 at 03:14 PM EDT #