Future Reading: Digitization and its discontents.

Full Article in:
New Yorker
Nov. 5, 2007
by Anthony Grafton

"Digitizing every book and putting them on the Web. That’s the vision of at least three major corporations including Microsoft, Amazon and Google." While many technophiles are forecasting the end of the book, one wonders what happened to the "paperless office.” The last paperless office I am aware of (if you don't count papyrus or vellum) was in Mesopotamia and used clay. One thing about baked clay is that it is not subject to "bit rot.” Not everyone thinks that digitizing all of the books will mean the death of the book or the library. Mr. Grafton in his article on Future reading concludes:

Sit in your local coffee shop, and your laptop can tell you a lot. If you want deeper, more local knowledge, you will have to take the narrower path that leads between the lions and up the stairs. There—as in great libraries around the world—you’ll use all the new sources, the library’s and those it buys from others, all the time. You’ll check musicians’ names and dates at Grove Music Online, read Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” on Early English Books Online, or decipher Civil War documents on Valley of the Shadow. But these streams of data, rich as they are, will illuminate, rather than eliminate, books and prints and manuscripts that only the library can put in front of you. The narrow path still leads, as it must, to crowded public rooms where the sunlight gleams on varnished tables, and knowledge is embodied in millions of dusty, crumbling, smelly, irreplaceable documents and books.

So does information in book form contain any added value or is it more valuable when retrievable from a large database? Is the ability to retrieve any quote, sentence, or paragraph from a sea of zeros and ones a boon or a loss to society? I am sure it will cut both ways unfortunately many including college students will use this new method of access to find a quote to substantiate their preexisting opinion as opposed to doing research to develop an informed opinion of their own. These disembodied pieces of text can loose meaning when taken from a carefully crafted discussion of hundreds of pages then turned into a text-bite. While this has been done in the past with the advent of full text databases, it has become the norm. Furthermore, the "researcher" no longer needs to read the text to find a quote they use or misuse.

A truly noble sentiment that makes an excellent text-bite:

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate... we cannot consecrate... we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

While this phrase expresses an inherently moving ideal its meaning is greatly diminished because of its separation from the next paragraph:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us... that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom... and that government of the people... by the people... for the people... shall not perish from this earth.

This idea of taking the sacrifice of hundreds and thousands of soldiers and turning it from a vain and disheartening tragedy into a reaffirmation of values and a re-dedication of purpose is truly a masterpiece of oratory. However, how much meaning is lost if the reader is not aware of the battle of Gettysburg, or even the American Civil War. Assumption of this knowledge is no longer valid in the US let alone in cultures linked by the Internet across the globe. Is there any value left when this or any significant piece of text is removed from the context that framed its meaning?

If you doubt the value of context, or format, read the Gettysburg address online. Then one night read it alone carved on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps then the realization of the importance of context, format, and how vital it is to meaning may become apparent.

	R. Philip Reynolds preynolds@sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy/Religion, Political Science/Geography