I enjoyed the lecture on Thursday evening. I've heard of e-books like the Kindle or the upcoming Nook, but I really hadn't considered the impact of the idea behind the device until the topic came up at the lecture. The Kindle takes what would be thousands of pounds worth of paper and condenses it so that the user can carry an entire library around with them at any point in time. While this is certainly a technological upgrade, it will be interesting to see what happens to traditional books. The paper industry has been hurting and will continue to bleed with mass electronic reading on the horizon. It instantly brings to mind the notion of authenticity, and how not only are we willing to give up the cover, the chosen typeface, the body of the book itself, but we are doing it and buying into a status icon image at the same time.
The fact that the Kindle is a successful product shows that there are still vast amounts of people who enjoy casual reading, but I think the idea of going to a library to pick out a book to read is something my generation will not get to properly experience. It's a shame, but the inclusion of all the books in a public library into a small, personal device is too difficult to pass up, and with data memory capability increasing the way it has consistently year after year, that looks to be a very real possibility in a not too distant future.
I see how Vinyl Records have made somewhat of a comeback recently, the last remnants of puritan audiophile defense against the mp3 dominated music industry. I believe books will enjoy and entertain a similar audience, for a time. Eventually, paper will become obsolete and electronic reading will be the mainstream, but imagining a world without paperback books is pretty wild.
I liked how one audience member at the lecture asked if kids would still "get lost in the stacks" like he had when he was younger. I think that the idea behind getting lost in the stacks is completely lost in my generations and the ones that will follow it. We process information too fast to take enough time for the slower paced and imagination consuming act of reading written words.
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Good blog. It shows that you really understood the speaker and took a great interest in this movement from real books and just electronics. How do you think this technological way of reading will influence the experience we get from reading a physical book? What do you think our previous theorists would have to say about this? This class has been so lucky by having so many opportunities for critical thinking with these cultural theorists - I'm glad that you are taking advantage of it! :)
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