Beyond Books and Bytes: Reading and the Future of Scholarly Communication.
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| Title: | Beyond Books and Bytes: Reading and the Future of Scholarly Communication. |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Deekle, Peter V. |
| Source: | Liberal Education. Win 1993 79(1):12-17. |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 6 |
| Publication Date: | 1993 |
| Document Type: | Opinion Papers Journal Articles |
| Descriptors: | College Curriculum, Electronic Publishing, Futures (of Society), Higher Education, Information Technology, Liberal Arts, Reading, Scholarly Communication, Scholarship, Technological Advancement, Undergraduate Study |
| ISSN: | 0024-1822 |
| Abstract: | Because of the rapid evolution of electronic publishing and information technology, books will be only one of a wide variety of formats for information exchange. In undergraduate study as in other areas, the future of books is dependent on the continuing habitual tendency and preference of adults to read text. (MSE) |
| Journal Code: | CIJOCT1993 |
| Entry Date: | 1993 |
| Accession Number: | EJ464245 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN9601120215;LIB01WIN.93;1996Feb12.12:09;v2.3</anid> <title id="AN9601120215-1">BEYOND BOOKS AND BYTES </title> <sbt id="AN9601120215-2">READING AND THE FUTURE OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION DISCOURSE</sbt> <p>Imagine a novel that has no pages. Or a "book" that displays "page" after "page" in a preconceived time frame and order; for this new kind of pageless book, once each "page" has been displayed it is permanently destroyed. Is this a copyright attorney's dream? An avid scholar's nightmare? </p> <p>This new kind of book is neither dream nor nightmare. Instead, it is already a reality, offering increasing communications potential for both the creators and the readers of books. Using the latest optical and digital storage and retrieval technologies, the "publishers" of these new electronic books are able to reduce significantly the amount of time between the conception of a text and its publication. </p> <p>Any author "directs" the reader's attention through the selection of words and the design and textual layout of a book, whether the format is printed or electronic. One current example of electronic publishing's impact on reading is William Gibson's Agrippa: A Book of the Dead (Kevin Begos Publishing, 1992). This modem electronic novel--actually a self-contained computer file--has been designed for a single reader and a single use. Once activated, Agrippa's storage disk displays successive "pages" of the novel; as the reader proceeds, each page of electronic text is sequentially erased from the device's memory, until the end of the text is reached. Thus, the book actually "self destructs." The author of Agrippa believes that this electronic "book" will intensify the concentration of the reader through its progressive presentation of the novel's "pages." At least for this short fictional work there is no intended future. Its author has protected it from unauthorized duplication and provided for its destruction following one reading. </p> <p>Agrippa and other examples of electronic publishing offer the promise of lower costs than their print counterparts as well as improved access to their contents. Agrippa actually provides a portability roughly approximating that of short novels; its lightweight, compact container provides storage and display in one unit. </p> <p>I have deliberately chosen a radical example of the new electronic media to illustrate alternatives to the printed text. I use this example to illustrate my concern about reading and the future of the printed book in modem life. As an educator and academic librarian, I am increasingly worried about how adults acquire information and gain knowledge. I am concerned about whether and to what degree we may be witnessing the devaluation of the importance of reading. </p> <p>How this condition has arisen is the subject of considerable debate. Many educators associate reading's declining popularity with the ever-expanding amount and availability of information. Information overload may foster our society's infatuation with details and trivia instead of a concentration on mastery of a subject. This may partially account for the continuing popularity of speed-reading courses and the current interest in cultural literacy, reflective more of breadth than depth: We crave information but may stop short of acquiring knowledge. </p> <p>Added to this are the time constraints that characterize modem life. Although reading attentively and fully has become for some a cherished luxury--a respite from the demands of information overload--it poses an unjustifiable distraction and ponderous demand for the attention of many others. The engaging and omnipresent audio, visual, and graphic media supply a stimulating variety of information sources. These media compete with print and other verbal media for our daily attention. Traditional publications have actually accommodated popular visual and graphic media in the recent return of comics, condensations, illustration serializations in popular periodical literature, "books on tape," and public television and Merchant/Ivory theatrical adaptations of fiction. </p> <p>Evidence of these trends is not absent from the academy. While the undergraduate curriculum provides a variety of learning opportunities, few of these have addressed the critical learning needs of an information age. Anthologies and excerpts offer "instant" facts and details. The continuing prevalence of textbook instruction and assigned library reserve readings--delimiting and focusing the learner's information options--persists; we do not sufficiently encourage the selective and wide exploration of ideas and concepts. The undergraduate curriculum is still focused more on the subject details of each course than on fostering an active and inquiring scholarship. </p> <p>The continuing significance of the book as a positive contributing force for undergraduate study has been increasingly tempered by other emerging forms of scholarly communication. Many instructional technologists and curriculum specialists have observed an increase in student knowledge mastery and retention rates when multimedia presentations are compared to reading books. Moreover, the popularity of multimedia in college teaching and for assigned learning enrichment does not necessarily have a negative effect on reading books. Librarians and educators have noticed that these "engaging" media often foster heightened student interest in reading. Popular televised mini-series and film adaptations of novels have generated increased sales and library loans of printed texts. In this electronic age, them. electronic media may support the continuing habit of reading books. </p> <p>Some critics of print media have described the book as a costly and unwieldy medium that inevitably will be replaced by other emerging educational media. Books may seem heavy, bulky, relatively expensive, and easily damaged. Yet in comparison with current electronic media (and their attendant hardware), books continue to compare favorably. Books are in fact lightweight, easy to handle, relatively inexpensive to purchase and use (requiring no ancillary equipment), and, at this time, more durable when published in conformance with archival standards. </p> <p>Printed books and journals have long played a vital communication role in college curricula. The continuing significance of the printed book in higher education will depend in part on the future importance of reading as a scholarly activity and a lifelong practice. </p> <p>Students usually satisfy their immediate information needs first. This emphasis is reinforced by the attention paid in classrooms to content details over the mastery or appreciation of a subject's contextual framework. Many educators worry that ready access to electronic communications and specialized information data bases may encourage the fragmentation rather than the integration of knowledge. </p> <p>Some librarians and educators recognize that electronic media allow students (as readers) to select freely and often randomly from electronic files of data and text. This enhanced electronic "rummaging" may significantly improve the learner's access to immediate, factual information, but it also may limit a student's understanding of a subject's contextual framework, hindering a broad and informed understanding. There continues to be no "quick fix" for a student's mastery of a subject short of reading extensively from the written record found in printed books and journals. </p> <p>The printed book continues to have many contemporary advocates. In fact, some educational theorists believe that nonprint communications technology may enhance rather than supplant the reading of texts. While preserving the textual form, the digital revolution may liberate the word from the printed page by offering inexpensive, full-length texts in electronic rather than increasingly expensive printed formats. The publishers of The Modem Library, for example, have announced the introduction of their popular classics series in electronic form. The publisher admits, however, that reading printed books provides all the benefits promised by electronic media: portability, interactivity, and personalization of content; in view of this, the series will continue to be republished in book form as well. For the most current data, electronic formats may well become cost-effective sources, but for a low-cost and convenient source of knowledge in a broad contextual framework, the printed book remains the most viable form. </p> <p>We are confronted, then, with the distinction between our need in the information age for "raw data" (information) and "useful information" (knowledge that we derive from information). Reading is a requisite skill of learning since it entails deliberate evaluation, analysis, and reflection on the meaning of textual information; books foster this kind of learning. </p> <p>The future of books in undergraduate study will be linked to the importance educators and learners place on selective and critical reading. Admittedly, reading is a solitary act which requires a well-prepared and disciplined learner. The use of printed books is likely to persist in an era of emerging electronic media only to the extent that undergraduates are capable of independent scholarship (the appropriate selection and evaluation of information). </p> <p>What forms of verbal text will scholarly communication use in the future? Computer literacy is increasing among young adults while reading is in decline. The 1991 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that only 10.2 percent of twelfth-grade students used the library once a week, compared with 59 percent of fourth graders.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>] While the causes of this decline are varied, the telecommunications revolution has fostered an expectation for immediate sensory gratification and feedback. Andrew Trotter has characterized this flood of information that flows from freely accessed information data bases as "edutainment": a learning behavior that involves relatively indiscriminate retrieval of information from readily available electronic storehouses.[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>] </p> <p>Today's computer-based learning prepares students for regimented tasks but does little to promote critical thinking skills. For example, "hypertext"--computer-assisted writing done in a nonlinear or nonsequential mode--seems to offer some high-tech advantages over the traditional reading and writing activities associated with print media. Learners create or use "hypertext" to select multiple paths among text segments and confront the structures and multidirectional linkages of prose. In this learning mode students must understand new relationships among ideas and textual images. </p> <p>Hypertext promises to empower the learner and connect scholars in a contextual framework bordered and delimited only by the product's creators. Intriguing though it may be, however, some argue that hypertext may prescribe and limit the information options for students; on the other hand, hypertext's ease of use and accommodation of graphic and textual images can encourage the learner to read further on a subject of interest. </p> <p>A glut of information has assaulted the academy, as well as the general public. The proliferation of information sources is demonstrated by the expanding variety of new periodicals and scholarly monographs. However, a corresponding and troubling escalation of publishing costs has accompanied this information glut. The future of the printed word in the form of books and periodicals seems threatened by the simple economics of this proliferation. </p> <p>Paradoxically, perhaps, electronic publishing facilities offer a convenient and low-cost means for scholarly communication that may hold the promise for improved printed books and scholarly journals. Improvements are likely to result from a reduction in the number and variety of costly monographs and periodicals that presently serve as vehicles for reporting immediate research. Electronic formats provide a less expensive and more timely means for these reports. In recent years, library leaders have proposed, for example, an electronic "scholarly communication system" that could provide advance information alerts to scholars about research in process--reserving the printed format for final, detailed reporting of results and findings. </p> <p>A final issue concerning the future of the book in scholarly communication--more critical for scholarship--is the preservation of the growing number of electronic documents. Librarians at George Washington University and George Mason University have described a research/communications partnership that would use the accessibility of electronic media to allow scholars to share research findings. Today's electronic publications already exemplify the scholarly communication system envisioned by this partnership. The authors of these "publications" are creating and editing them online to produce original and in some cases revised editions--which may eradicate the trails of scholarly discourse and inquiry so vital to knowledge. </p> <p>The future of books is dependent at least in part upon the continuing popularity of reading. By this I do not mean basic literacy but the habitual tendency and preference of adults to read text. Print media continue to offer readers convenience and mobility without complicated encumbrances. </p> <p>As we affirm the future of the printed book, we recognize that electronic media are enabling the creation of original and derivative records of human thought which may have no future, no permanence. It seems likely, therefore, that the future publishing and reading of books will be compatibly linked with the increasing production of information in nonprint formats. Readers are likely to access the text of novels, reports, and other documents in a variety of formats--including the printed book. </p> <p>1. Anne C. Lewis, "National Assessment: A Reprise," Phi Delta Kappan 72 (May 1991): 654. </p> <p>2. Andrew Trotter, "Technology in Classrooms: That's Edutainment!" Education Digest 57 (January 1992): 5. </p> <p>PHOTO (BLACK &amp; WHITE): Hypermedia edition of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's works showing text from The Blessed Damozel, Rossetti's painting of the same name, the only surviving manuscript of the poem (1856) and an early printed version from the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856) </p> <p>PHOTO (BLACK &amp; WHITE): First linotype machine and its operator </p> <p>PHOTO (BLACK &amp; WHITE): "Perfecting press," built by A.B. Taylor and Company; wood engraving in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper; 1856 </p> <p>CARTOON: "MY MOM SAYS TV IS A BOOK FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T READ." </p> <hd id="AN9601120215-3">REFERENCES</hd> <ct id="AN9601120215-4">Astle, Deana L. "Suicide Squeeze: The Escalating Cost of Scholarly Journals." Academe 75 (July-August 1989): 13-17. Beth, Amy, and Evan I. Farber. "Lessons from Dialog: Technology Impacts Teaching/Learning." Library Journal 117 (15 September 1992): 26-30. Cohen, Roger. "The Lost Book Generation." New York Times, 6 January 1991, A34. Coover, Robert. "The End of Books." New York Times Book Review, 21 June 1992, 1. Doherty, Richard. "A 'Factory' for Scholarly Journals." Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 June 1992, B1. Gifford, Bernard R. "The Learning Society: Libraries Without Books?" Chronicle of Higher Education, 29 April 1992, A16. Jennings, Lane. "Why Books Will Survive." The Futurist, April 1983, 5-11. Kernan, Alvin B. "The Death of Literature." Princeton Alumni Weekly, 22 January 1992, 11-15. Lewis, Anne C. "National Assessment: A Reprise." Phi Delta Kappan 72 (May 1991): 654-55. Rice, James. "Managing Bibliographic Information with Personal Desktop Technology." Academe 75 (July-August 1989): 18-21. Rodgers, Sharon, and Charlene Hurt. "How Scholarly Communication Should Work in the 21st Century." Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 October 1989, A56. Trotter, Andrew. "Technology in Classrooms: That's Edutainment!" Education Digest 56 (January 1992): 3-7. "2 Little Time 4 Reading." Editorial, Harrisburg (Penn.) Patriot-News, 30 May 1992, A8. Walters, Edward M. "The Future of the Book: A Historian's Perspective." Information Technology and Libraries 1 (March 1982): 15-21. Weiskel, Timothy. "The Electronic Library and the Challenge of Information Planning." Academe 75 (July-August 1989): 8-12.</ct> <aug> <p>By PETER V. DEEKLE </p> <p></p> </aug> <sidebar> <title id="AN9601120215-5">UNTITLED </title> <p>The nineteenth-century Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle said, "The true university these days is a collection of books." Who would offer such a simple description today? In those days now long past, the library was often referred to as "the heart of the university," a metaphor of dubious precision for the twenty-first century. How times have changed! </p> <p>In 1992, the library is much more than a collection of books, and more than the heart is required for an anatomical metaphor. The library serves as the memory of the academy, and the communications network as well, so perhaps the brain and central nervous system provide the better analogy. In that memory are various modes of information storage, not only books. In modem times the campus library, in order better to serve the learning community, uses whatever technology or mode of service best serves our cause of advancing learning. </p> <p>But wait: Something is missing in this picture, in the image of the "electronic library." We know in our hearts that our love is for books, which give a library its soul and make us feel good when we work there or visit for pleasure. Carlyle's words still capture the essence of the library, if not the functional reality. </p> <p>I'm not so old that I learned my academic discipline from the original publication of Galileo's Two New Sciences, but I have used modem translations in my teaching, from publications employing his original woodcut illustrations (which live in my memory like the smells of childhood). It was a very significant publication in 1638, and today even its technical errors are enlightening. (Every student feels a bit better when told that Galileo made the same mistake.) </p> <p>With such precious volumes in our collection, the library renews its claim to the heart as well as the mind. That's something to celebrate! </p> <p>(Remarks at dedication ceremonies of University Libraries' one millionth volume; reprinted with permission.) </p> <aug> <p>By PETER LIKINS </p> <p></p> <p>President, Lehigh University </p> </aug> </sidebar> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib1" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib2" firstref="ref2"></nolink> |
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