blob blog
India, Ink blog features the New York book design scene curious about Iowa book geeks.
hey, sophie
A new trans-medium book making application,
Sophie, uses the old e-book tagline of changing the nature of reading. What we really need is not more fluid organization of screen books, but more structured organization. If screen reading and screen writing is to cross over into book format conveyance we will need the assistance of structuring software, another
StorySpace.
One of the immature aspects of screen reading is its reliance on search resolution. The comprehension of conceptual works occurs well down stream of search results. The screen search results not only proliferate tangents, but pose as resolutions of research questions. The book author and book reader first need a map, not resolutions. The needed screen-book software would assist to compile that map, both across component topics and across book media.
The other deficiencies of screen reading are legibility (not resolution, but transmission and default screen drawing interruptions), lack of persistence and crippled haptic assimilation. Now we can add to the list pre-emptive focus on search, link and trans-media features with an over emphasis on fluid organization at the expensive of structural mapping. The book is a structural map.
being symbot
ìWriting Machinesî proposes to explore the relationship between contemporary literature and computer technologies, focusing on the ways that new technologies of writing have affected the development and dissemination of narrative. This is a hybrid literature and writing class, meaning that weíll be combining the standard seminar modes of reading and discussion with lots of hands-on production. Over the course of this semester, we will explore the ways that various scholars have theorized the relationship between the electronic and the literary. Weíll complement those more theoretical readings with a careful look at a number of examples of electronic literature, from early hypertext experiments through contemporary blogs. And over the course of the semester you will do lots of electronic writing, both individually and communally.”
A wonderful workshop with a magnificent
syllabus; transending the matrix of the book by engaging genres native to the screen.
four aesthetics
I remember specific statements of book conservators, seemingly made off-hand. I am beginning to realize that these were expressions of a fundamental aesthetic approach to the work. Letís take these at face value to derive working expressions of an aesthetics of book conservation.
ìI am involved in conservation to preserve the unique character of an age.î Chris Clarkson. ìAuthenticity cannot be restored.î Paul Banks. ìDonít fidget, do everything directly.î Don Etherington. ìMake it flow!î Peter Waters.
Unique Character ìAt its best, craftsmanship in conservation is not simply a skillful use of tools and materials, but a knowledge and sympathy for the volume and the period of its production.î Familiarity must breed the opposite of contempt in the book conservator. The book conservator meets each book with an expectation of some message.
Donít Fidget Decisive speed exemplifies experienced craft work. The practice needs only a few tools; a bone folder, sanding stick and cutting out knife and the book conservator will work gracefully and accurately with an elegant, syncopated speed.
Authenticity vs. Treatment Book conservation is justified by balancing the disruption of treatment against damage projected if a physically and chemically vulnerable artifact is continued in use. Certain materials deserve protection from disruption and re-fabrication. When undertaken, treatment processes should be relatively reversible. The story that the book has to offer should be told by the artifact, not by the conservator.
Make it Flow The book conservator is a restorer of mobility and without that result the work is ugly. A haptic aesthetic motivates the conservator. With effective transmission of forces and pliant response to handling, the book will protect or conserve itself.
role of gelatin
Tim Barrett, our papermaker at the UI Center for the Book is doing research on the protective role of gelatin in paper. Using a non-destructive, light beam monitor he is able to quantify gelatin in early papers. Indications are that higher gelatin content correlates with increasing age.
The surviving samples necessarily represent surviving samples. That is, as older and older samples are measured we are increasingly measuring qualities of survivability and so the logic of the correlation is there. But by the same logic, older and older samples are increasingly irrelevant to a study of causes of deterioration. On a time scale of 500 years, permanence factors are revealed in the long run and deterioration factors in the short run. Timís ultimate challenge is to connect the two rate related processes to confirm that the very characteristics apparent in the permanent papers are at least somewhat interactive with processes of deterioration.
There could be other explanations for the presence of gelatin in older papers. It is frequently remarked that early printing simulated manuscript, but un-remarked that early printing papers could have deliberately simulated vellum.
The underlying question is why were printing papers gelatin sized. The sizing faciltated manuscript production, but not the printing process.
