[143] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Computerspeak
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Walt Crawford)
Fri May 1 16:16:00 1992
Date: Fri, 1 May 1992 14:53:13 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Walt Crawford <BR.WCC%RLG.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
"Computerspeak" is a silly name for this thread, but so be it.
Jim Dwyer sez:
> we fail to serve the whole of society at our own peril...
Lee Jaffe sez:
> Geoffrey Nunberg...basically does not buy rumors of the demise of
> the book... his point is that the technologies are complementary...
*Flame on* (but *not* directed at Jim, Lee, or Mary Jensen--
some day I'll meet and buy drinks for all three of you!)
Why do so many other folks think that electronic media and print
(that is, traditional ink-on-paper print, not print-on-demand) are
either/or choices? Other than asinine "we can only get the money to
make electronic publishing work by shutting down print publishing"
arguments (this ain't the USSR--and neither are they, for that matter)
or "we must wean people away from the media they clearly prefer,
because we know better than they do" (this ain't Albania, either--
or whatever's left of it), there's simply *no* reasonable case to
be made for books (as a whole) and periodicals (excluding narrow-
focus scholarly journals) going away because of electronic media.
Ditto the daily newspaper, for different but related reasons.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
When all we had for widespread dissemination of information that
needed to be retrieved on demand was print on paper, everything
looked like a book or periodical.
When you buy a drill and handsaw, a lot fewer things look like
nails--but lots of things still need nailing, not drilling or sawing.
When we add electronic publishing, either semi-traditional (PACS
Review et al) or nontraditional (online archives, WAIS, etc.),
we widen the range of tools, and widen the range of appropriate
solutions for specific problems. That does *not* mean that the
new solutions suddenly replace all of the old solutions...except,
of course, for those who never liked the old solutions (there are
clearly a bunch of people out there whose attention span doesn't
permit them to enjoy reading a book from start to finish).
Lee quotes a simple five-syllable word that says most of it:
===complementary===.
Electronic access (publishing or otherwise) complements traditional
print publishing. Some existing print products clearly make better
sense in electronic form (most abstracting & indexing services;
many "atomic" reference works, where typical use is as the paragraph
or small-article level; many scholarly journals with narrow readership,
where a typical institution requires infrequent access to contents; etc.);
they go away as print products. They should.
Other print products continue to make better sense in print form
(virtually all novels; most mass-market periodicals; most newspapers;
a fairly large number of nonfiction books). They will continue as print
products. They should.
Some products will continue in both forms. If both forms succeed, that's
a pretty good indication that they should.
It's not either/or; it's both/and. Almost always has been; almost
always will be. New technologies typically complement older technologies,
*unless* the older technologies were fatally flawed and/or had no
independent advantages. If you believe that print is fatally flawed,
you have my pity. If you believe it has no independent advantages,
you can add sorrow to pity.
*flame off*
PS: To steal a chop from Tom Lehrer: if you did not like this message,
you will most assuredly want to avoid the talk I'll be giving at the
Arizona State Library Association conference this October: "The Death
of the Book, Xanadu, and Other Nightmares, or, Brother, Can You Paradigm?"
-walt crawford; BITNET:br.wcc@rlg; Internet:br.wcc@rlg.stanford.edu-
-once in a while I should mention that these are only my opinions-
To: PACS-L@UHUPVM1
