An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (@chronicle) by Harvard professor and librarian Robert Darnton says, “The nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness.” He singles out 5 statements to dispute:
1. “The book is dead.”
2. “We have entered the information age.”
3. “All information is now available online.”
4. “Libraries are obsolete.”
5. “The future is digital.”
Regarding the last one, he says it may be not so much mythological as misleading.
In 10, 20, or 50 years, the information environment will be overwhelmingly digital, but the prevalence of electronic communication does not mean that printed material will cease to be important. Research in the relatively new discipline of book history has demonstrated that new modes of communication do not displace old ones, at least not in the short run. Manuscript publishing actually expanded after Gutenberg and continued to thrive for the next three centuries. Radio did not destroy the newspaper; television did not kill radio; and the Internet did not make TV extinct. In each case, the information environment became richer and more complex. That is what we are experiencing in this crucial phase of transition to a dominantly digital ecology
He says these misconceptions “stand in the way of understanding shifts in the information environment.”
They make the changes appear too dramatic. They present things ahistorically and in sharp contrasts — before and after, either/or, black and white. A more nuanced view would reject the common notion that old books and ebooks occupy opposite and antagonistic extremes on a technological spectrum. Old books and ebooks should be thought of as allies, not enemies.
Let Somersault help you see pbooks and ebooks as allies.