I say these things because I agree to some extent with both of two opposing viewpoints on the Kindle’s impact on the culture of words and the future of books, both of which were published at theAtlantic.com.

Sven Birkerts’ article of March 2, 2009, “Resisting the Kindle,” laments the potential world created by the Kindle revolution in which “libraries survive as information centers rather than as repositories of printed books.” Professionally, I am actually fine with that. I am a librarian not primarily to preserve information but to make it available in ways that our students find helpful and accessible. Personally, however, his recognition that our literature is deeply contextual and historicized resonates with me. Consider:

Why, then, am I so uneasy about the page-to-screen transfer—a skeptic if not a downright resister? Perhaps it is because I see in the turning of literal pages—pages bound in literal books—a compelling larger value, and perceive in the move away from the book a move away from a certain kind of cultural understanding, one that I’m not confident that we are replacing, never mind improving upon. I’m not blind to the unwieldiness of the book, or to the cumbersome systems we must maintain to accommodate it—the vast libraries and complicated filing systems. But these structures evolved over centuries in ways that map our collective endeavor to understand and express our world. The book is part of a system. And that system stands for the labor and taxonomy of human understanding, and to touch a book is to touch that system, however lightly.

I think, though, that Matthew Battles’ article of March 5, 2009, “In Defense of the Kindle,” along with his 2003 book on the “unquiet history” of libraries, has helped to soothe my personal bibliophilic concerns:

Yet the culture of letters has always been subject to disruption and transformation. Indeed, since the advent of print, technologies of the book have changed dramatically, and with them the book’s place in society. The world of letters not only transcends these technological changes—it thrives because of them. Were that not the case, the cultural continuity that Birkerts holds so dear would have been lost long ago.

In other words, We didn’t start the fire. It was always burnin’ since the world’s been turnin’.

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Books, Libraries, Literature, Tech | 3 Comments »

Last week I posted this 1946 essay by George Orwell lamenting the degradation of the English language at the hands of political speech. Today I read “Reviving Anorexic Web Writing,” an article which applies similar thoughts to the web’s contribution to the degradation of the English language. The author is Amber Simmons, a writer and a web designer at the University of Texas at Austin, who writes elsewhere about many things including “theology and faith” — but from a perspective unsympathetic with biblical theology. What she has to say about web programming at intersection with society, however, appears to be rather helpful. She writes in her lament over the web’s contribution to the degradation of the English language:

As our culture becomes increasingly digital, the art forms that support it must be constructed with the same care, deliberateness, and gusto as our traditional media. Intelligent content is the literature of our time. It is not enough that our printed books and magazines are ardently written and meticulously edited. Our culture loses much if we encourage online writers to sacrifice grace and personality on the altars of pith and scannability. Perhaps better advice is to encourage writers to say exactly what they mean with precisely the words required, however many they may be.

This article was published in the online magazine A List Apart (ISSN: 1534-0295) which explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Literature, Web | No Comments »

A BBC News website poll which asks readers to identify ten classic English novels based on their first lines is more difficult than you might think. Their website explains:

Leading literary firms failed to recognise the work of Jane Austen when it was sent in by a prankster. The opening chapters of three novels were submitted under an invented name, with titles and character names changed. Think you can do better? Try our opening line quiz.

Take the BBC poll and try from yourself. I scored a 6 out of 10. Perhaps this previous poll was wrong.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Literature, Quotes, Web | 2 Comments »