[296] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Print vs. Electronic Information
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Wed May 20 08:45:01 1992
Date: Wed, 20 May 1992 07:41:20 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
4 Messages, 109 Lines
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From: jaffe@ucscm.UCSC.EDU (Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz,
408/459-3297)
Subject: Re: Print vs. Electronic Information
I think that the best way to approach this question is to
consider what the book (codex) and other print forms do well
and what they don't do well. I find myself playing devil's
advocate on both sides of this question. I never thought that
the majority of information worked particularly well in print
but that's all we had. Think of it, photography and the phono-
graph are only a little more than a century old. Between the
first use of ink on paper (China?) and then are a couple or
so millenia. In all that time, everything was recorded on paper
or nothing. We've been shoe-horning human culture into print
the whole time. A considerable number of our cultural institu-
tions were born, nurtured and matured within the framework of
print. The novel is one. Print has also changed a lot of our
culture. Think how pervasive "book thinking" is in our culture.
(You can't judge a book by its cover. It's a real page turner.)
{{
On the other hand there is a significant amount of information
that is printed that shouldn't be. Think of the phone book.
A 10-lb. book printed every 6 mos. distributed to virtually
every home in the country. I bet the average copy get more
use as a booster seat than it does as a book. On the other
hand, I'd like to know the volume of 411 calls. They started
printing the damn things as a way of promoting the phone. There
are so many better ways available to us, I wouldn't blink if
they stopped printing them and set up some "on demand" system
instead. (What about a Bell node on the Internet for every
area code, Telnet-able, with some decent search software?)
Anyone that wants to argue that the book is dead needs a
reality check. No improvement in computing is replace the
book. Anyone wants to argue that we are going to see some
printed information distributed in other forms, more power
to you. Same to those that say that we are going to see a
proliferation of formats and new cultural forms spring out
of new technology. And my biggest kudos go to those that
think of good reasons that the different media are compati-
ble and support each other.
-- Lee
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From: "Bill Drew-Serials/Reference Librar. SUNY Morrisville"
<DREWWE@snymorva.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Print vs. Electronic
I believe Cliff is wrong on a couple of points in the message below. Tables of
Contents and Indexes are LESS useful in electronic text because pages are a
paper phenomenon. If the text is in ASCII format or else a viewer of some sort
is used, text could be searched using such programs as LIST for personal
computers or a texteditor or word processor. HYPERTEXT is fine but only puts
you where the writer thinks you should go not where the reader necessarily wants
to go. That is the biggest problem with many hypertext products currently
available.
| Wilfred Drew (Call me "Bill") ______ |
| Serials/Reference/Computers Librarian / | |
| State University of New York / | |
| Agriculture and Technical College | | |
| P.O. Box 902 _________/ | |
| Morrisville, NY 13408-0902 | | |
| DECnet: SMORV::DREWWE / * Morrisville |
| BITNET: DREWWE@SNYMORVA |______________ | |
| Internet: DREWWE@SNYMORVA.CS.SNYMOR.EDU |_ | |
| DREWWE@SNYMORVB.CS.SNYMOR.EDU \__| _____ |
| Phone: (315)684-6055 or 684-6060 |_____| |
| Fax: (315)684-6115 |
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Subject: Re: Print vs. Electronic
From: nelson@Mayo.EDU
Cliff Urr says:
> {stuff deleted}
>without finding what they want. For this and other reasons, electronic book
>users are going to be much more dependent on indexes and table of contents
AU CONTRAIRE! I would be lost without several utilities that are
available on the computer to do searching. I frequently look at large
text files and use more (or less) for string searching. Even more
often, however, I use grep on a whole directory to find "that file with
something in it about indexes". Granted, these are somewhat ugly
tools for end-users, but it does show that the tools area at least
available right now.
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From: "Genevieve Engel" <GENOL@UCCMVSA.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Print vs. Electronic (indexing costs)
Hypertext is one approach but it's also possible to do straight
indexing just the way you do for a paper book. You simply have to
use a different unit of location measurement (e.g., paragraph
numbers rather than page numbers) that will stay with the text as it
moves from system to system. If you have a paragraph number from an
index it is fairly easy to move to that paragraph even in a
bare-bones line editor. I don't think indexing with units other than
pages will necessarily be a significant new expense in itself.
Genevieve Engel > "Information wants to be free"
MELVYL System User Services > -- Stewart Brand
University of California >
gen$ol@uccmvsa.ucop.edu >
genol@uccmvsa.bitnet >
