2nd floor of The Mechanics Institute Library
The season is finally catching up with the economy: things are becoming slow and dark. There has been much speculation about the future. Where will the bread come from? Can we afford heat? Despite the urgency of these questions a large group of members and guests gathered at The Mechanics Institute Library on Thursday, December 3 to discuss the topic: Is the Book Dead? High-tech and the Written Word.
Perhaps the crowd was so large in part because of these questions. The event, free to members and only $12 for non-members, included wine and juice and a fabulous cheese spread, assorted chocolates, breads, fruits, and even miniature quiches. There was also a star-studded panel of industry experts, from popular writer Daniel Handler (also known as, and creator of, Lemony Snicket), publishers Brenda Knight (Cleis Press and Viva Editions) and Oscar Villalon (McSweeney's), John McMurtrie, Book Editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, Annalee Newitz, editor of the science fiction blog io9 and author of the syndicated column Techsploitation, and Scott Rosenberg, author and co-founder of Salon.com. Alan Kaufman, best known for editing The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, was in large part responsible for putting the panel together and served as host. Watch the introductions:
Alan Kaufman
The primary objective for this discussion, as set forth by the library's Events Director Laura Sheppard, was "to debate the future of the book and the impact of the internet and new emerging technologies." Kaufman, who has recently authored an essay on this topic entitled The Electronic Book Burning, is very passionate about preserving the book in its physical form. So passionate that he remarks "The book is fast becoming the despised Jew of our culture" and compares the emerging technologies that threaten an obsolescence of books with the science used by Nazis in World War II to eliminate six million Jews, even as, he acknowledges, "This was done in the name of progress by means of technology for the creation of a better world."
Both Kaufman's essay and the follow-up on Huffington Post entitled Google Books and Kindle: A Concentration Camp of Ideas are well-written and fiercely argued, but naturally I think his rhetoric and comparison a bit ridiculous. I am also a Jew and have relatives who survived and those that didn't, but let's forget that for now. The point is, as I see it, that Kaufman has slit the elephant's stomach and started crying foul. He doesn't like what's happening and wants to talk about it, and the best way to get our attention is to throw guts in our faces. I'm fine with this. On the whole, so was the audience, who, tipping the age scale in the heavy direction, was engaged and in fact incited to raise hands and proffer points of view during Q&A even when they didn't have questions. The following two clips contain Kaufman's opening remarks:
Daniel Handler
There were moments when Kaufman's anti-technology polemic silenced and even baffled panelists Annalee Newitz and Scott Rosenberg, most visibly (and perhaps appropriately, as they represented the high-tech side of the argument), but some of the other panelists agreed afterward that Alan seemed not to know - or perhaps care - what the word 'moderate' means. He was not going to even entertain the possibility that technology could be a good thing and not the end of the written word, as we know it, forever. That this was a man making a stand no one would doubt.
He made a call "To hold the world of high-tech accountable for what it's doing to the book." He called Google Books a "Stalinesque effort to dwarf the individual, to subsume us ... Orwellian." But as panelists were quick to point out, technology's threat on 'the book' is actually more of a threat on the printing industry, which has already seen substantial nationwide losses in the news sector and which will, presumably, suffer a similar fate in the realm of hardbound and paperback books.
But that's not the only problem. Mr. Handler expressed concern, considering Amazon's recent and ironic removal of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from all of their e-readers the Kindle, over the potential that "A non-fiction expose on a pertinent subject would get a cease-and-desist letter form lawyers and would disappear the moment that people might want to read it - say before an election." This is a very legitimate fear.
Brenda mentioned the problem of piracy - the same issue many musicians battled in court during the advent of Napster and other free community-based downloading sites - and how it might make it harder for writers to make money (and thus, presumably, discourage others from even beginning). Although, of course, many writers are not so disillusioned that their writing alone will establish economic solvency.
Annalee Newitz addressed another important issue: privacy.
Companies like Facebook or Google or Twitter or the companies like AOL that run your IM client when you chat with your friends -- they are saving all that stuff, and that is creepy. But the answer isn't to flush computers away and get rid of all that awesome reading and connectedness that we have online ... The Mechanics Institute Library is a monument to how a history of an interest in technology has helped improve society, and that's what we need to be doing, is educating people about how they can improve society by learning more about the technology they're using. Fearing the computer is less important than learning more about it so you can seize control of it and make sure that those fascists don't take charge. Because the subversives [should] take charge instead.
Mr. McMurtrie, of the San Francisco Chronicle - itself, of course, no stranger to this issue - encapsulated the crux most broadly: "This is a good opportunity for the publishing industry but we have to embrace it." Even while The Chronicle might be suffering, its web version SFGate is one of the most widely-read online newspapers in the country. As Scott James, a.k.a. Kemble Scott, who has had success in part directly because of online publishing, recently said, "E-book debuts can create buzz and become a new tool for agents, publishers and booksellers to find titles that warrant further exposure." This extends to newspapers, too. "What if there are investigative reporters who do magazine-length pieces and charge for direct access to their work?" Scott continues. "That could actually be a way to do some serious journalism that wouldn't otherwise get done." For additional discussion that focuses on ways the publishing industry will utilize technology and the internet, see Ransom Stephen's thorough and insightful article Booking the Future.
Mr. Rosenberg expanded the argument, taking issue with Kaufman's claim that we are "trying to disappear ourselves into technology." He argued that, if anything, technology makes it easier and cheaper for us to express ourselves. Admitting that he supports himself through the sale of hardcopies, he added that books, newspapers, Kindles, iPhones are all "delivery mechanisms" and likened the current transition to that of compact discs replacing vinyl. "Music - that's not going away. We have a human need for music. We have a human need for stories. They will exist in some form and we'll need to keep figuring out the economic bases to support the people who want to help."
There were some additional debates about the power of big business and privacy, but due to their incendiary nature, and the fact that conversation goes a bit off-topic, I'll just let you watch.
Before we get into the Q&A, I'd like to make some personal remarks. We have to ask ourselves: Why preserve a text in the first place anyway? As the panelists themselves replied, "most things get lost." Many scholars and philosophers agree that we have become a culture so engrossed in our past that we have no new ideas, are unable to act and, as a result, are rapidly degenerating. This is what we should think of when we hear the words "modern condition." History as a discipline needs an overhaul; it should be replaced by a new mythology. These issues are perhaps not appropriate here, as they were not part of the discussion, but I bring them up merely to illustrate that the disappeance of the book is not our biggest problem. As Mr. Rosenthal remarks regarding ethics and appropriations, all industries should be regulated according to ethical standards, and there are many, many industries in which this need is more dire than in publishing.
As I see it, the issue is not whether the book is dead or dying, but what we should do to preserve our control over content as books become digitized, and to ensure that we do not fall prey to, as Mr. Rosenthal put it, the convergence of "An old legal regime and a new technological reality."
Brenda Knight
John McMurtrie
Annalee Newitz
Scott Rosenberg
Oscar Villalon
Stay tuned for more on this issue. It's happening, whether we like it or not.
The Mechanics Institute Library is located @ 57 Post Street, right beside the Montgomery St station. For a list of events and services, and to obtain a membership form, click here.
For more: here for TOC, here for latest.
Comments