Chapter 7 – Reading the
Background
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu






Under the Hammer
Going, Going . . .
Documents as Darts
Making News
Unreliable Witnesses
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu






Hamlet in Cyberspace
Networking
Invisible Colleges
Other Worlds
The Press, the People, and the
Republic
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu





American Impressions
Fixed or Fluid?
Binding Issues
Matter of Design
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu




Prediction of the paperless office
Consumption rose over the past decade from 87 to 90 million tons/year
In 1998 paper companies outperformed Dow by 40%
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu


Many paper artifacts are disappearing
– Rolodex
– Government checks
– Library card catalogues
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu



Paperless Office
– 1975 – consumption of 100 pounds of paper per person
– Currently more than 200
PARC’s Ethernet
– Hardly noticed when taken down for maintenance
– Became noticeable only when laser printer added to network
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu


Electronic newspaper
– Paper based is expensive and perishable
– Attempted replacement 50 years ago with fax forerunner
– Later offered as microfiche with handheld reader
– Other attempts have also failed
– Why?
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu


Electronic newspaper
– Many newspapers now have web sites

Paid

Non-paid

Easier to search, especially archives
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu


Digitized libraries
– Project Gutenberg


Digitizing books for 30 years
Currently about 10k titles online

UK publishes about 100K new titles per year
– Definition of library is changing


No longer just a repository of books
Becoming more of a repository of
“knowledge”
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu


Sticking Around
– Paper is proving difficult to get rid of
– Self-publishing is becoming easier
– It is easy to annotate and return a fax
– Post-It notes came in the middle of the
‘digital age’
– Hand annotating is easier than electronic
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu


Documents as darts
– Documents appear as airplanes did to ships when the document contains information
– Otherwise, it can be folded into a paper airplane
– Reflected in the English language as documents are said to contain, hold, carry and convey information
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu

– Digital attempts to extract information and leave the paper behind
– Can leave out vital information
– We sometimes read between the lines
– Separating the vehicle from the information can cause loss of meaning
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu





Conduit metaphor suggest information is discrete lumps
Medium is not an indifferent carrier
Newspaper conveys information using story location
This additional meaning is lost in a database
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu





Documents give information validity
Published documents embody the institutional authority of the publisher
Physical size conveys importance
Worn, creased documents must be authoritative
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu





Digital documents gain none of this authority
Anyone can publish to the web
Many people do business only with established brick and mortar businesses
Some services such as Alexa provide hit information to show a page has been accessed frequently
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu




Documents help structure society
Publications help form communities
Shared and circulating documents act as a sort of social glue
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu




Documents, printing and postal service provided for widely disseminated information
British Royal Society
Added a printed journal in 1665
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu



Science and its documents evolved around each other
Letters, faxes and photocopies are widely disseminated within communities
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu




In large organizations, people generally do not personally know each other
Sense of membership and belonging is fostered through documents
The US was founded on documents
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu





Daily newspapers came into being in the early 1800’s
Freedom of the press facilitated growth
Noticed by foreign visitors
1842 – pirated copy of Dickens’
102,000 word
published in 19 hours!
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu



“A man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them” – Thomas Jefferson
Newspapers provided a sense of community
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu





Documents become ‘weighed down’ during processing
– Manuscript acquires type, binding, cover, embossing, jacket, etc.
The information in documents is fixed
Documents are free to circulate
Digital tends to be fleeting
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu






John Barlow suggests economic shift
Fixed only sells once
Fleeting can sell many times
Musical performances vs. recordings
Personalized newspaper does not convey sense of community as a conventional one does
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu




Legal and other requirements may dictate fixed media
Fixed media can be used as proof
Television and film are somewhat transient media
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu






Concern over emphasis on fluidity over fixity
Books and documents are read differently based on content and intent
Context shapes content
Web page appears as mostly text
Page source is mostly style
William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu

William H. Bowers – whb108@psu.edu