While the growing world of the internet penetrates into our lifes, modifies and shapes our way of thinking, the new Ipad from Apple freshly commercialized is now clearly questionning our culture. Our way to read books, which is one of the most essential intellectual function of human being, is re-configurated. This new kind of supports for books, called ebooks, clearly created their pro & anti. The battle between eletronical / paper support for books and culture is already running.
All these fears sparked off the birth of a new kind of books, a new promising way of exploring culture which can not be criticized since every cultural's (r)evolution carries its own threats.
The philosoph Plato had already noticed this, while through his character Socrate (in Phèdre) he's speaking about the birth of writing as a threat for our knowledged, preserved in our heads, by making us stop remembering and learning because of writing. Writing was perceived as something which would eventually lead us to intellectual lazyness, by making the contents easily accessible. This fear had also been formulated by Hieronimo Squarciafico, an italian editor of the 15th century.
Robert Darnton, an american historian who focused his studies on the history of books, wrote about electronic publishing and founded the gutenberg-e program.From his point of view, he sweeps away these fears because the ebook is just broadening our possibilities. The problem doesn't come from these new supports themselves, but rather from the way they become monopolized by a few powerful companies. We thus have on the one hand, a huge field of possibilities offered to us, on the other hand we have problems caused by the knowledge's commercialization. The symbol of this debate is undoubtely Google, which is about to become the most important source for digital readings, with more than 12 millions books already digitalized. But the firm doesn't only see itself as a library: what Google aims at is a huge pool of contents economically workable, rather than an « House of Knowledge ».
And it is a truism that Google is the only actor who can afford to create a real virtual library, while the most prestigious libraries in the world, such as Harvard, even if they associate to each other , couldn't engage so much money into this kind of project. This put Google in a monopolistic situation, which can legitimately give rise to fears. This is the reason why some attempts of creating a virtual library to compete GoogleBooks have been made. Indeed, its main competitor is the European project called Europeana, created in 2006 in reaction to the birth of GooglesBooks.
Many questions rised from the arrival of GoogleBooks, one of the most important concerns the access to knowledge. There is exactly the same problem concerning Google News. When everything is potentially available online, then the way to access the data is at least as much important as the data itself is. Thus, a monopolistic situation automatically implies fears and questions. In this context, the main fear of Google is to lose this monopolistic hegemony. Even if it's hard to believe: Google is not untouchable. This is the reason why the firm invested so much money in this project. By making sure that every internet user will find what he's searching via google's tool, which is the only way to be profitable, the firm tries to annihilate any rival.
Back to the ebook case, then the main question which remains to answer is to define "What is a book today ?".
Electronic books are in fact blowing up the variety of readings offered by traditional book. These new supports offer more possibilities, which could become the key point accomplishing the transition towards digital readings. It is a non-sense to say that ebooks will bring more mobility for reading. But what is new is that texts are amplified with references (in the form of codes read by the machine), which makes the reading more clear and intelligible. In the text, words are underlined and offer the possitibility to get more details about concepts. With ebook, texts are enriched by what can be called metadata. These « data of data » are linked and referred to each other, creating new grids of reading and comprehension of a text.
Thus, what we have to expect are the disruptions which will blur not only the question of reading, but also the economical model of books. Since we entered this new era, books are no longer obeying to the principle of unit sell, but they become accessible through various channels. There is no proof that this is the best pattern, as subscriptions are for example very efficient when it comes to the electronic reading. Every aspect of reading is concerned by ebooks.
To conclude, i would say that as we briefly described, electronic book is deeply changing our habits and ways of reading and thinking. However, this new trend may not be seen automatically as a negative one, as a threat. Indeed, we can easily imagine all the benefits we could get from electronic readings, concerning social networking, or community of reading. Books will be enriched because they are integrated in a sort of « ecosystem » of books. Reading becomes more social. It is now integrated a in a complex system of interactions: electronic books start to interact with each other easily, electronic reading is also interacting with many applications such as Twitter, FlickFr (for example to add pictures to the book you're reading).
All is a matter of balance. Digital reading can be seen as a threat by those who consider traditionnal book as a kind of « holy support » for culture, whereas, as we said, electronic reading offers a new dimension to the books, by situating them into a specific context (references to others books, links etc..) which allows to imagine new grids of culture, giving a « second » birth to the books. Electronical knowledge doesn't not necessary rhyme with a levelling down culture. It seems obvious that these new readings carry their own advantages and evolution compared to traditional reading. This is what has to be balanced with the dangers that electronic reading represents.
Luc Allain
Below some links of videos related to ebooks
How to turn ebooks into money makers Part 1
How to turn ebooks into money makers Part 2
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