some things just aren’t virtual
My favorite room in our house is the office upstairs. It’s a small, square, 8-by-8 room that was the fainting room back in Victorian times.
Every wall is covered with books. And in a way, they tell a story about us: my business books above my desk, Hilary’s collection of children’s books, our joint collection of tattered college lit titles marked with yellow “used” stickers. I have my Vonnegut section, she has works on Tudor England. There’s a shelf of heavy law books, a pile of Starfish and Spider copies, and some e e cummings on a high shelf.
Books, like few other possessions, radiate a certain warmth. Over these last few years thinking about decentralization, what’s amazed me is that books have managed to survive.
Just as any self-respecting city has a man on a street corner warning that the end is near, post-dot-com America has had a steady stream of prophets predicting the end of books.
Books, they argue, are basically depositories of information. Lots of information is becoming unconstrained by physicality—think of music, encyclopedia entries, etc.—and as it becomes electronic, it also becomes that much easier to pirate. Goodbye record label profits.
But this argument falls short when it comes to books. You can’t cozy up to a CD in bed, but you can enjoy a good book. The experience is visceral, it’s not just about getting information. Every year brings new gadgets for reading electronic books. But will people give up how they feel when they turn the pages of a good novel?
I might be romanticizing book reading, but while you can make lots of things virtual, you can’t replace the emotional connection that people have with a rainy day, a hot cup of coffee, and good book in their hands.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:34 am
I’ve found one interesting analysis of the difference between data, information, and knowledge in “The Social Life of Information” by John Seely Brown ( former chief scientist at PARC) and Paul Duguid. As you move up each step from data to knowledge in their analysis, greater social context enters the mix. This is orthogonal to the “physicality” argument, though the physicality of books does have one other nice social component compared to electronic media: other people can easily see what you’re reading. That in itself is valuable in terms of trying to establish your identity and connect with others. Anyone who has taken a “serious” book with them to read in a cafe in part to appear a “serious” person can attest to this effect!
An aside: check out Seely Brown’s suggestion for a decentralized approach to engineering education: http://www.itworld.com/Career/3710/061201schoolshift/pfindex.html