steam punkers stay tuned
1840 Columbian coming to an Iowa server farm.
new ong
One insight of Walter Ong is that old media are not displaced by new but are transformed. Old and new trade places. In today’s context the print book has been transformed by digital technologies for its access, production and distribution including transmission directly to end user production. Meanwhile attributes of the physical book, such as self-authentication, digital mastering and default preservation, have become appreciated anew in the virtual environment of screen reading.
Another Ong insight is that these hand-off transformations accumulate. Orality has been revamped by interplay with writing, with printing, with broadcasting, with internet and with all these together. Yet, people are still talking.
See the newly added typescripts of lectures including, “Media Transformed: Electronics and Printed Books” at the
Ong site
pioneer again
ìAlthough demand for online access to digital books has been growing, books as artifacts continue to have a real value,î said Oya Rieger, Associate University Librarian for Information Technologies. ìThis initiative supports the reading and research patterns of users who prefer the affordances provided by physical books ñ they support deep reading, underlining and writing comments in the margins. The Web is great for easy access and browsing, but because digital content can sometimes be ephemeral, physical books continue to serve as valuable reference sources on your shelf.î Ö (from TeleRead)
Cornell was the pioneer in digital reformat of rare books when the Xerox Docutech was new. The precept was scanning for output to paper. Now as “affordances” begin to factor, rare books can be renewed as such again.