[1378] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Dead Trees and Humanities
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael S. Hart)
Fri Oct 2 10:45:05 1992
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 09:32:03 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 30 Sep 1992 16:17:14 CDT from <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Yes. . .I am sure this conversation can truly be labeled R.I.P.
Paper books will be with us forever, no matter what the cost/benefit ratio
electronic books can provide students, scholars, authors and researchers--
and the new generations will look back on computers and electronic text as
a passing fad.
Even when the value of the facsimile editions can be preserved, reductions
in the cost of graphic etext will allow the cost for such etext editions a
more or less equivalent price a decade or so later than the Plain Vanilla,
even then, the draw of paper will be irresistable, with the smell, texture
and general "look and feel" we have come to associate with knowledge, with
scholars, and with authoritative editions. This is why we still build all
our courthouses, banks, capitol buildings, etc. in architectural style and
rendering of buildings built several thousand years ago.
Modernism: the very fact that the modernist trends have never even had an
authentic name is symbolic of their passing. . .after all, movements can't
change the world without ever drawing enough attention to themselves to be
given a name.
=====================================================
Thank you for your interest,
Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
COPYRIGHT 1992 PROF. MICHAEL S. HART, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THIS MESSAGE MAY NOT BE COPIED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
