Back to Blogging, and Subversive Encouragement

So, as my few loyal readers might have noticed, I’ve been on blogging hiatus for a short while.  I’d like to blame some sort of local exigency, but it really my desire to write long, analytic, posts combined with the lack of time.    Today, however, I saw something that reminded me of the reason I started this experiment.  The Shifted Librarian made a post about building doors; not literal doors, but those in an extended quote from another blog; the part I liked is,

Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door and I will break  window. And if I don’t have have a leader to inspire me, I will lead. If I don’t have a team that will support me, I will recruit a team from beyond the organizational boundaries – every policy has a loophole, every system has a hidden reward. (from Virtual Dave… Real Blog)

This is of course the rhetoric of a pep-talk, and about someone else’s own issues, but it was what I needed to hear today.  It reminds me that what we write can have positive effects beyond sharing odd facts about cultural materials, and that those of us hoping to get somewhere need to find as many windows and fire-exits as possible.

I suppose then I’ll be getting back to writing about odd cultural materials, windows, and fire-exits.

The Text and the Code of Libraries and Exhibits

The issues surrounding digitization are familiar in the realm of cultural semiotics, which provides some insight into the promise and dangers of digitization. These issues are partially explored by Baetens and Van Looy in an article entitled Digitizing Cultural Heritage: The Role of Interpretation in Cultural Preservation. Their idea is adapted from Lotman, Uspensky, and Mihaychuk’s concept of the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture, and provides an insight into the meaning and purpose of the digitized absolute archive. They discuss the concept of philological readings and hermeneutic readings, which respectively refer to the substance of the artifact (i.e. Lotman’s ‘text’) or the mechanism to place the artifact in cultural context (i.e. Lotman’s ‘code’). Separating these two components is crucial to their argument about digitization and memory, but it also clarifies the distinction between libraries and exhibitions.

Since I’ve been working on this blog, I’ve been stridently avoiding digitizing objects: my pictures have my hands in them, they are taken from odd angles, or in imperfect lighting situations. I leave, and sometimes encourage these blemishes, to emphasise that these are simply digital photos of the thing which I am be talking about, not a digital surrogate of the object. The goal is to explicate and explore, rather than attempt to compete with digitization efforts. This parallels the distinction of the text and the code.

Consider this image of a leaf from Helias Peterus Grammatica (BSB, P-372, right) taken from the systematic digitization efforts of the Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek. It is a flat point-of-view mimicking the page, has a mechanism for determining scale, and is based on specific digitization standards and a systematic approach, leaving the text clear and philologically decipherable. Compare this with an image of the Apollodori Atheniensis Bibliotheces (CU Special Collections, BL780.A6 1555, left) that highlights a component of its binding. A hand is clearly visible, as is the manuscript used in reinforce the spine, but the image has no mechanism for determining scale, and is not based on any specific digitization standards. Its purpose is interpretive, or as Baetens and Van Looy call it, hermeneutic. It is intended to explore the code of the object, rather than its text. One would be overzealous to claim that the picture on the left is a meaningful digitization of the book, but it is quite effective in addressing the physicality of the artifact and the cultural code that it represents. Each image his different functions and goals.

This is the key difference between digital libraries, and digital exhibits. A digital library has some sort of systematic approach focused primarily on preserving the text of the artifacts represented, but expects the researcher to arrive with an understanding of the code already and makes no attempt to make it clear. The digital exhibit, on the other hand, servers to preserve the code of cultural interpretation for the objects, and may be less concerned with the text. This library-exhibit, or text-code, dichotomy characterizes one of the distinctions crucial in special collections libraries.

The special collection generally houses the physical artifact of record. This artifact of record is the form that, for some reason not necessarily related to value or rarity, has been selected to be preserved by the institution. The preservation of a specific form is a commitment to the code which might be contained and beyond current recording capabilities. Creating digital surrogates, or other facsimiles, may serve to preserve the text (and in some cases part of the code) but by retaining the actual object enables the hermeneutic analysis of the code. Properly, the digital exhibit is a manifestation of a pedagogical tool for describing code. This is ultimately the key difference.

Where the digital library, like a normal library, requires a systematic and standards based approach, the digital exhibit flourishes with a promiscuous and interpretive approach. I think this distinction is crucial as we move towards more specialized technology, because if we expect a library to be an exhibit, or vice-versa, we will ultimately be disappointed. Exhibit constructors and library constructors must keep in mind this crucial difference so that they can clearly satisfy their particular goals.

The Initial Teaching Alphabet

I’m very interested in the relationship between oral understanding and visual understanding. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, section “The alphabet is an aggressive and militant absorber and transformer of cultures, as Harold Innis was the first to show,” I saw a reference to a strange alphabet which was constructed to aid British children in learning to read. McLuhan neglects to tell us what this “43-unit” alphabet is, but through a little sleuthing I found out that it was the Initial Teaching Alphabet. My library also owned a children’s book in this alphabet, Couboi Smaull.

Reading this text reminded me of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake where additional meanings begin to manifest themselves if you read the work aloud. The couboi’s story made little sense until you tried to speak what was in the text. I was unable to read this book without sounding out words, which was an interesting experience that I thought I had left in childhood.

 

 

A two page spread from children's book, Couboi Smaull

Another view of the same page:

 

Some text from the children's book Couboi Smaull

Disintegrating the book digitally

Yesterday, I gave a short presentation about seeing the “Book Transformed Through Information Technology” at the Boulder Public Library. It was a wonderful crowd of most of the staff at the library and I was really happy with the contrasting presentations. Tony Tallent ran the show and set the stage for the big questions of the day, Helen Blowers spoke engagingly about play and technology, and Matt Hamilton delivered a compelling talk about calm computing in libraries. (incidentally, Matt has provided a fantastic overview of the day on his blog) My talk was looking backward at the history of information technology, and things that we have deemed worthy of the moniker the “book.”

During the presentation, I showed a slide of a digitized copy of a Gutenberg Bible in Second Life 

Digitized Gutenberg Bible in Second Life

and asked the audience whether it was a book or not. Only three people out of the seventy or so there said yes, and zero said no. Most everyone seemed to want to abstain from the question. This is not the first time I’ve seen this, and it seems like people are nervous in making such a judgement; it as though we have entered an uncanny valley, inhabited by the golems of cold digital technology being brought to life in something that resembles the shambling mass of an animated book. Technology enables the disintegration, and reintegration, of the bundle of characteristics and activities of the book. Do you want something that looks like it has pages but you can’t touch? Then the virtual book is a great approach.

The bible in Second Life was created by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, and certainly has some limitations. It is the size of a virtual mini-van and only has a few pages. The binding is dramatically altered and the rest of the physical evidence obscured or destroyed. However, I think it is a fantastic teaching example because these changes highlight the non-textual information contained in the artifact, and the limitations allow us to explore what we can see in other objects.

 Librarians are closely engaged with the consumption and development of information technology, which is defining what a book will be for people in the future. This is really a fantastic time to be involved in the information profession and I was really excited to see the staff at the Boulder Public Library engaging in this sort of discussion.

Electronic texts are normal, published texts are weird

In “The Textual Criticism of Visual and Aural Works” (Studies in Bibliography, 57 (2005/2006): 1-37) G. Thomas Tanselle suggests,

Textual criticism—the study of the relationships among variant texts of works—has primarily been associated, throughout its long history extending back to antiquity, with verbal works as transmitted on tangible objects such as parchment and paper. But all works, whether constructed of words or not, have had histories that—if fully told—would reveal stages of growth and change, reflecting not only their creators’ intentions but also the effects of their passage to the public and through time. All works, in other words, have textual histories. (p. 1)

He then discusses where one might find the techniques for criticizing non-written works. Most of the work he cites either exists within intangible media such as dance, music and drama; or exists

The Hundred Dollar Laptop as eBook reader

within tangible media that is consumed as part of the creation, such as painting, garden or sculpture.

In the long view of human history, more of the work is verbal or performance of myths and epics, and has only recently begun to include printed texts. We imagine that a printed book will continue to exist for quite some time without much outside influence, and the sequence of editions and prints of books creates a traceable lineage. Printing and writing, are rather new inventions which have the appearance of special properties of durability and traceability.

The electronic text is much more like a performance than a printed text. A particular instance may be remembered electronically for some time, but eventually must be renewed through copying. The text does not generally maintain itself in an easily readable form, but in some sort of code which must be replayed to be understood. The electronic code can be changed, often easily, without leaving any traceable lineage. Since the electronic code is not generally self-authenticating, one cannot necessarily distinguish variant copies without complete collation.

However, this is a matter of technology. Modern electronic information often includes hashes, digital signatures, or other devices to authenticate the data; not unlike the use of rhyme and meter as mnemonic devices, which also serve to authenticate the text. Furthermore, much modern electronic editing software records the trace of the work’s lineage.

This detailed trace of a lineage is actually quite unusual. This trace disappears in painting, because each version of the painting covers the previous. Published texts leave the previous versions obsolete, but existent. However, this is not an artifact of the printed text. It is an artifact of the published text, and somewhat illusory as well.

The imagined ideal of the publishing situation (partially reflected by interpretations of Darnton’s communication circuit) is that each version of a book is printed and distributed, leaving a copy of each version in the collective archive of humanity. When a researcher wants to trace the lineage of something, they simply locate all the earlier versions. The actuality of the situation is that editions can be hidden, lost, or simply never published. Furthermore, the author may destroy her early manuscripts.

The electronic textual situation is simply more obviously tenuous because we haven’t learned the archeology of the electronic text, nor have we enabled it through publication patterns.

The state of non-durability and un-traceability for electronic texts is normal when compared to aural and performance based work, while our concept of published texts—though slightly inaccurate—is the unusual one.

Les contes des fées mysteries

This book of early fairy tales, written by Madame d’Aulnoy around 1697 poses some interesting identification problems. The artifact is in fairly poor condition. The leather that once covered

Title page of Les contes des fees

the boards is eaten away, the text block is partially detached from the cords, and the book is moderately soiled throughout.

However, even with it’s attrition, the book is fairly important. In Jacques Barchilon’s study on the fairy tales of Madame d’Aulnoy, he cites a similar book as giving evidence of the tales’ first printing. His observation is partially derived from the note at the end of the introductory material, “Achevé d’imprimer pour la premiére fois, le 29 Avril 1697.” If this note is accurate, then since this book is dated 1698, one might assume that this is not the first printing. However, the publisher Claude Barbin sometimes dated books a year after they were printed, especially if the book was printed late in the year. This is the same sort of thing that car manufacturers do today. They will sell the 2009 models during 2008 so that purchasers feel their item is up-to-date. We must turn to other sources about the book.

The beginning of Les contes des fees

The Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes / par A.E. Barbier gives the first printing as occurring in 1698, not 1697, and that the work was in ” 8 vol. in-12. Réimprimé souvent en quatre vol. in-12 et en 6 vol. in-18.” This seems to support the hypothesis that the book was printed in 1697 and just dated as 1698. However, no reference work is infallible. Luckily, Barbier cites sources for his information. For Contes he cites Les supercheries littéraires dévoilées, which gives a 1698 edition, but cites the 1774 entry in Supercheries. Frustratingly, the entry in Supercheries for the 1774 edition cites the 1698 entry. Thus, we don’t know why Quérard thought that Contes came out first in 1698, nor do we know if this is the 8 vol. edition in duodecimo or the later reprint in 4 vol. in duodecimo. (Happily, we can rule out 6 vol. in eighteenmo based on the physical evidence in the book) Our difficulties are further compounded since we don’t know of other copies of this book.

The various parts of the book could have even been printed at different times. The section dated 1698 could have been attached to a 1697 printing of the book, or other such complications. The book remains a mystery until other copies surface, or someone comes across more information.

This is frequently the pattern with printed books. Librarians and scholars have untangled the puzzles of printing, often giving us the impression that things are very simple, but when we come across something rare and uncommonly studied, we discover that publishing is a hideous mess leaving mysteries like Les contes des fées.

Atomic Aldus Improving Technology with Old Ideas

I recently came across this post at Hoefler & Frere-Jones about writing with an atomic pen, and I enjoyed their discussion of making extremely small letters. They had observed that although using an atomic force microscope to manipulate atoms might draw small letters, the letters would be even smaller if written in italic. Although the inventor of italic did not have access to the technology of atomic pens, he was able to design a structure that transcended time and technology. The modern mode seems to be technological intoxication. Many seem to believe that they have the ability to solve all the world problems with technology and that our solutions are actually quite new; but they seem more like refinements of older ideas.

This post is not a screed against technology, however much like that it might seem. Technology is important and it helps create and frame our modern problems, but our solutions are often lying in the rubble of the past. People may not have had atomic pens before, but they did have the need to write letters compactly. To ignore older solutions is to accept a self-imposed handicap.