LEAD IN: In pairs, discuss the questions below: 1. What type of texts do you normally read? 2. Do you prefer printed documents or electronic? Why? 3. Are printed books/press in danger of extinction in the face of e- publishing?
The book is dead. Long live books. Jeff Jarvis Monday June 5, 2009. The Guardian
We need to kill the book to save books. Now relax. I’m not suggesting burning books, nor replacing them with electronic gizmos in some paperless future of fable and fantasy. Instead, I’m merely arguing that the book is an outdated means of communicating information. And thanks to the searchable, connected internet, books could be much more. Yet we prove to undermine efforts to update the book because, culturally, we give extreme reverence to the form for the form’s sake. We hold books holy: children are taught there is no better use of time than reading a book. Academics perish if they do not publish. We tolerate censors regulating television but would never allow them to censor books. We even ignore the undeniable truth that too many books, and far too many bestsellers, are pap or crap. All this might seem to be the medium’s greatest advantage: respect. But
that is what is holding books back from the progress that could save and spread the gospel of the written word. When I wrote this on my blog, defenders of the printed faith came after me with pitchforks and cries of, “Philistine!” After journalist Kevin Kelly advocated for the digital future of books in a recent edition of New York Times, John Updike took to the stage at the BookExpo conference to criticise him. “Pretty naive stuff,” Updike moaned, “throwing us back to the level of pre-literate societies.” Or holding us back in a pre-digital society. Today, any medium that defines itself by its medium is in trouble: newspapers, broadcasting and books must be valued for their substance over their shape. Is a book bound paper? Or is it the ideas and information within? If there are better ways to share knowledge, why should it suffer the limitations of the printed page? Books are frozen in time, yet in digital form, they can live in never-ending editions. Short of footnotes and bibliographies, books have little
connection to related sources and debates; online, the simple link solves that. Hear Ben Vershbow of the Institute for the Future of the Book: “Parts of books will reference parts of other books. Books will be woven together out of components in remote databases and servers.” And Kevin Kelly: “In the new world of books, every bit informs another; every page reads all the other pages.” There are also too few books. Trade publisher Bowker reports that in the UK, more new book titles were published last year than in the US 206,000 v 172,000. In print, books rely on scarce shelf space, gatekeeping agents and editors, and expensive production. But online, writers could reach the mass. And finally, unless you are Plato or Shakespeare, your book will vanish when there is no space left for it. Print is where words go to
die. There are other problems to consider: copyright law is built for an old world. How can writing be supported in a post-scarcity information economy, where there is no shortage of words? What social and technical barriers will there be in getting authors and readers access to tools and connectivity? Above all, there are cultural issues. We have to get over the idea that lecture media is always superior to dialogue. We have to move past our one-way culture. While we worship the book with its present limitations, we cannot reinvent it. The book is dead. Long live books.
I. Read the text and choose the correct answer: 1. Which statement best summarises the main idea of the text? a) Printed books are no longer read in present-day post-industrial societies. b) The future of books lies on digital formats given their greater capacity to share and expand knowledge. c) Most printed books are low-quality works. 2. In the writer’s opinion, what is keeping printed books alive is a) culture’s worship of the printed format over the content of books b) readers’ reluctance to use new technologies c) society’s stress on authorship 3. Defenders of the printed faith stand against the digital future of books a) because they fear the expansion of illiteracy in a purely digital society. b) because they ignore the limitations of the printed page. c) because they want to hold readers back in a pre-digital society. 4. The author’s ideal of a future world of books is a world a) with free and unlimited access to books b) in which books are connected and reinvented by online links c) without libraries full of dead books 5. According to the writer copyright law is built for an old world because a) it prevents the expensive production of books b) it favours a dialogue between writers and readers c) it privileges authorship and lecturing over readership and dialogue.
II. Find words and expressions in the text that mean the following: 1. Old-fashioned, not current or belonging to the present time …………………………. 2. to make something become gradually weaker or less effective …………………………. 3. To examine cultural products and remove what is considered objectionable …………… 4. Difficult or impossible to negate, irrefutable …………………………... 5. Low-quality, foolish material (informal language) …………………………... 6. To extend, enlarge …………………………... 7. Complained, lamented …………………………… 8. To be connected and combined into a unified whole …………………………... 9. To disappear leaving no trace …………………………… 10. To show devotion or reverent love ……………………………
GROUP A: You’re the manager of a printing house and a strong defender of printed books and press. Think of as many advantages as you can in reading, buying and commercializing printed materials and why e-documents won’t make them obsolete
GROUP B: You’re the manager of an online site specialized in selling e-books and readers. Think of as many advantages as you can in reading, buying and commercializing e-documents and why they will make printed materials obsolete.
KEY: I. 1- b; 2-a; 3-a; 4-b; 5-c. II. 1. outdated 2. undermine 3. censor 4. undeniable 5. crap 6. spread 7. moaned 8. be woven together 9. vanish 10. worship