Week 11: the future of the book circa 1990

Thanks to our good ol' friends at Merriam-Webster, a book is defined as "a set of printed sheets of paper that are held together inside a cover". Printed being the key word here. Early on in the course this semester, we discussed the history of the book: between the 2nd and 4th centuries, there was a shift from scrolls to books for reading, and then with the invention of the printing press, which occurred in the 15th century, the way people read changed again (Drucker, 2009). Although changes in form occurred between the 2nd and 15th century, reading was still always done using physical, tangible forms until the use of electronic devices for reading became possible in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Based on this notion, the message I would give to anyone in the early 1990s would be to: (1) appreciate the book as just that, a printed book. My advice would be to those in the early 1990s because in the upcoming years, these individuals were about to experience such a fast and rapid growth in technology, which by the end of the decade would essentially result in a large amount of electronic devices that would touch every aspect of their lives...including how they read.In the 1990s, the only option essentially for reading material was physical. In the upcoming years, reader preferences and choices in relation to reading would change dramatically with the introduction of electronic readers.

The second message I would give to people in the 1990s (and even people today) is: (2) the way we read will never be static. People in the 1990s in their lifetime will have experienced a shift in reading from physical to digital, however even the digital is going to evolve dramatically as we are going to experience more changes with electronic reading as technologies become more robust, improve, and designers become more creative. As Prof. Galey mentioned to me in a conversation we had, e-readers today, in 2016, are very different from e-readers when they first became prominent in 2009 as these devices have been reinvented and improvements have been made. Not to mention, more players have entered the e-reading industry with Amazon and Apple becoming big names in the industry. Even laptops are becoming less prominent especially with the invention of the tablet, which is a smaller, more portable, and in some cases faster version of laptops; Burns goes as far to even call laptops "the mobile devices of yesteryear" (Burns, 2014, p.31)

My message/advice can be further generalized to say that one should remain open to change meaning open to the adaptation, implementation, and use of new technologies in any aspect of life. Yes, although technology does bring along hindrances, it also has the ability to bring along many advantages that can simplify processes, especially as companies find ways to make devices more robust and easier to use.

The future of the book is only beginning.

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References

Burns, John (March 2014). "E-book Devices" eContent Quarterly 1.3, 31-40. Retrieved from: http://search.proquest.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/1524958627/fulltextPDF/1B73B40E5A444CAFPQ/1?accountid=14771

Drucker, Johanna. (2009). Modeling Functionality: From Codex to E-book. In SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Projects in Speculative Computing, 165-75. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from: http://go.utlib.ca/cat/9988258