bookbinding & reading
There is not that much difference between sewing a book and reading a book. Both involve maintaining a tension. There is also the manipulation of pages related to the manipulations of mind. Finally there is a covering that relates one book with another. Is there meaning in these coincidental qualities?
(continued)
evolution of aim
Frank Wison discusses the scenario of human evolution that focuses on the hands prompting the mind. Are projected ideas related to thrown stones?
(see e-essay)
“Intelligent” hand use might not be merely an incidental bequest of our hominid heritage, but–along with the language instinct–an elemental force in the genesis of what we refer to as the “mind,” activated at the time of birth.
Is the physical book a mediator between the manipulations of hands and the manipulations of the mind? Just tossing out an idea.
(see e-essay)
multiplicity of modes
Princeton University’s endowed professor of European History,
Robert Darnton offered a presentation E-BOOKS AND OLD BOOKS:
PUBLISHING AND THE BOOK TRADE FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE INTERNET at the Indiana University. The lecture is based on Darnton’s
Presidential Address for the American Historical Association which
appeared as an e-article in a website created by Jian Liu, Indiana University Reference
Librarian. The title of that article is “An Early Information Society:
News
and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” and to get an idea of
the possibilities of e-books you might consult that website at:
http://www.indiana.edu/~ahr/darnton/ (from Rachel Lapkin)