[OPLINLIST] The book Is Dead. Long Live the Book

[Epling, Jimmie (KDLA)]

The book Is Dead. Long Live the Book 

 

For some time now we have been reading about the future demise of the
book. Jeff Jarvis in his article, "The Book Is Dead. Long Live the Book,
(BuzzMachine.com. May 19, 2006.
http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/05/19/the-book-is-dead-long-li
ve-the-book/) provides the most comprehensive list of shortcomings of
the book in this digital age I've seen.  The problems with books are: 

 

1) They are frozen in time without the means of being updated and
corrected.

2) They have no link to related knowledge, debates, and sources.

3) They create, at best, a one-way relationship with a reader.

4) They try to teach readers but don't teach authors.

5) They tend to be too damned long because they have to be long enough
to be books.

6) They limit how knowledge can be found because they have to sit on a
shelf under one address; there's only one way to get to it.

7) They are expensive to produce.

8) They depend on scarce shelf space.

9) They depend on blockbuster economics.

10) They can't afford to serve the real mass of niches.

11) They are subject to gatekeepers' whims.

12) They aren't searchable.

13) They aren't linkable.

14) They have no metadata.

15) They carry no conversation.

16) They are thrown out when there's no space for them anymore. 

17) Print is where words go to die.

 

Just some food for thought!

 

Jimmie

 

Jimmie Epling, Regional Library Consultant

FIVCO/Big Sandy Regional Office

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives

P.O. Box 370, 122 South Main Cross St. 

Louisa, KY 41230-0370

V: 606.638.4797  F:606.638.0586

jimmie.epling at ky.gov

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.oplin.org/mailman/private/oplinlist/attachments/20060524/9c1baadc/attachment.html