Book People Archive

Re: MP3's vs eBooks

Thanks Kate and Michael. Me too. Serendipity made me what I am!!!! 

I looked in my crystal ball and I saw:

Given a relatively short few years the concept of a book will give way
to the concept of related information bundles linked together. An
electronic text will then be larger or smaller fragments of text and
graphics, with external and internal links. It will be an organising
framework, a leaping off point. Within one session someone might start
reading a Dickens 'book', leap to view or read a biographical detail,
exchange ideas on their reading and sections of text (or views) with a
discussion group, jump to a critical analysis, follow the mention of a
place, or a historical person etc etc, or start from some other point
and reach the original Dicken's novel. This will support the freer less
structured journeys of the mind. Of course there will still be a desire
for the structured story, or poem....but also a desire for more freedom
of navigation. I don't know how that will change attention span or
quality of thought. 

This is what the Internet already is en masse, but it is fairly
unmanageable in terms of coherent navigation. These smaller organising
texts will need to be a combination of content and gateway....a manageable
core with coherent links and easy ways back to an 'interest' thread. 

In what I have already done with high density internal hyperlinks in
Ovid's Metamorphoses and Dante's Divine Comedy, I can see that it would
be a simple process to create external hyperlinks....integration with
discussion groups etc is clearly some way off....it would be demanding
of time and energy, but a rich 'bundle' so created would be exciting in
its potential width and depth. Such projects will require dedication
and probably teamwork though a surprising amount can be done by those
who care enough about the subject at hand. Should one start inside out
or outside in?

The public domain 'book' is an artefact with five hundred years history
(of mass distribution in Europe and America). I give it much less than
a hundred years to go. The new artefact will be the electronic 'bundle'.
I think that is a truly exciting concept. 

Regards

Tony Kline