parsed
Robert Darnton appears hedged in on all sides over Goggle influence on print book collections. His recent commentaries in the New York Review (Google and the Future of Books and Google and the Digital Future) offer a docket of transactions but not a peep about Google influence of digital parsing and a general dissolve of the bibliographic entity of the book.
There is a sense that he wishes to champion the print book in a context of its digital delivery, but is restrained. Perhaps it is enough to know that he is worried.
iconic hero
Both John Wayne and George Stout were born in Winterset Iowa, but only one of them went on to become an iconic hero. George Stout went on to invent with John Gettens the science and practice of art conservation. Then, at the onset of the most destructive war, Stout lead a company of soldiers during the invasion of Europe. His mission was to save artworks and monuments and to recover the plunder of the Nazi. The adventures, risks and pathos of this real John Wayne is well described in the new book, The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel.
I met George Stout in the early 70’s as he presented his illustrated taxonomy of material culture. These were the IIC/AG gatherings that gave birth to the American Insitute of Conservation and Stout was there. He died in 1978 and one of the eulogies put it bluntly; “He was the greatest war hero of all time – he actually saved all the art that everyone else talked about.”
mfa book arts
The Center for the Book at the University of Iowa will request an MFA degree designation for its existing program. The question is not about the program content or its proven performance. The question is what the degree should be named. Perhaps mfb; master of fine books or mindful future books.
future of reading
What is the future of reading books on things that are not books? We already know the future of reading newspapers on things that are not newspapers. But news is a daily commodity unlike the content of monographs and that may influence the display devices. Perhaps screen reading of books would be better accommodated if the screen could be tiled or if there were multiple device displays since that would permit selective correlation and sustained inter-reference.
But a more apparent interdependence of the screen and print renderings could emerge. The immediate legibility, haptic navigation, persistence and self-authenticating nature of print can complement qualities of automated search, electronic delivery, live content and self-indexing nature of screen books. Such complementary affordances could be extended to the same given title with the prospect of generating new meaning.