Status
Available
Call number
Publication
PublicAffairs (2010), 256 pages
Language
Original language
English
Description
"The era of the printed book is at a crossroad. E-readers are flooding the market, books are available to read on cell phones, and companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple are competing to command near monopolistic positions as sellers and dispensers of digital information. Is the printed book resilient enough to survive the digital revolution, or will it become obsolete? In this lasting collection of essays, Robert Darnton--an intellectual pioneer in the field of this history of the book--lends unique authority to the life, role, and legacy of the book in society."--P. 4 of cover.
Media reviews
Darnton's thoughts are provocative, but his assemblage of essays, reviews and scholarly articles, many previously published in the New York Review of Books, doesn't quite measure up to the task. Some of the material is very recent, some was first published in the 1980s. As Darnton confesses, these
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pieces were "fired off, scattershot". The same concerns emerge over and over, with an insistence that comes to seem obsessive. In the final part of the book, essays on subjects such as the history of the commonplace book or the complex origins of Shakespearean bibliography unexpectedly appear. They are intriguing and accomplished, but the investigation of such matters is unlikely to interest readers eager to learn about the pressing consequences of Google's imperialism or the changing prospects for e-texts. Darnton is not clear about who should read this book and why. The result is a muddle. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
The author has collected and revised several of his essays that were originally published between 1982 and 2009. In his career, Darnton has been a student of the history of books, served on the boards of academic presses, served as a trustee of the New York Public Library, and is the current
Darnton's discussion of the future of books in the digital era doesn't break any new ground, but he does clearly present the potential gains and losses from the digital shift. He writes as well as anyone I've read on this topic. I was most intrigued by his essay, "The Mysteries of Reading", which first appeared as "Extraordinary Commonplaces" in The New York Review of Books in 2000. In this essay, Darnton describes the early modern era practice of keeping a commonplace book:
Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end (unless they are digital natives and click through texts on machines), early modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book. They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities.
It sure sounds a lot like hypertext, and brings to mind a verse from Ecclesiastes:
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
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director of the Harvard University Library. His writings on the past, present, and future of books are worthy of note. He writes from an insider's perspective about Google Book Search, open access, and the history of books and reading.Darnton's discussion of the future of books in the digital era doesn't break any new ground, but he does clearly present the potential gains and losses from the digital shift. He writes as well as anyone I've read on this topic. I was most intrigued by his essay, "The Mysteries of Reading", which first appeared as "Extraordinary Commonplaces" in The New York Review of Books in 2000. In this essay, Darnton describes the early modern era practice of keeping a commonplace book:
Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end (unless they are digital natives and click through texts on machines), early modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book. They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities.
It sure sounds a lot like hypertext, and brings to mind a verse from Ecclesiastes:
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
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LibraryThing member jgarskof
A good collection of essays but not a must read. Interesting analysis of the perspective symbiotic relationship between print and electronic books but too utopian in his conclusions. A surprisingly sparse bibliography considering Mr. Darnton's pedigree and scholarly publications. He did not
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substantiate claims of the correlation between the rising cost of journal subscriptions, diminished acquisitions, and career tenure, omitting other important variables that might have strengthened his thesis. Check out at your local library. Show Less
LibraryThing member davedonelson
The subject intrigued me, but the book was a disappointment. It is a collection of some of the author's essays and other work that gave me the distinct impression they were resurrected and thrown together simply to put a product on the publisher's shelf. While much of the esoteric history was
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interesting, the pieces about digital technology are horribly dated. Show Less
LibraryThing member libraryhermit
I am a sucker for any book I come across in the library or bookstore that is about book-nostalgia in the e-book age. Oh, our beloved books are going the way of the dinosaur, and we must save them from the philistines of library deaccession drives. This was another example covering a span of years,
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as it is a collection. I always find it interesting to sample the mood and degree or crisis from similar pieces taken across a span of years: that is, the panic about e-books was not the same in 1997 as it is in 2010. This book helped to see some of the historical panic from around the turn of the century, although as has been pointed out in some other reviews, and certainly directly from the book being reviewed itself, Robert Darnton does not let himself get carried away by the panic and finger-pointing that some other people do. Show Less
LibraryThing member djfiander
Darnton's "Case for Books" talks about books in three parts: the future, the present, and the past.
His discussion about the future of books is focused primarily on the potential of e-books, the place of libraries, and the impact of the Google Book Settlement (GBS) on making already published
Darnton is an engaging author, and there is much to enjoy in this book. It is, however, a collection of essays that have been adapted for publication as a monograph, and as a result it is somewhat uneven.
While the GBS is important, and its implications for libraries, authors, and readers need to be understood by all the stakeholders, I found this chapter difficult to get through, at least partly because it seems dated, having been written before the settlement was... settled.
The chapter on the future of libraries, and the entire last third of the book, "The Past", are wonderful, and I highly recommend them.
His discussion about the future of books is focused primarily on the potential of e-books, the place of libraries, and the impact of the Google Book Settlement (GBS) on making already published
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content available easily online. In the present, he again talks about e-books, and the current transition from print to electronic content. He also talks about how he attempted to encourage e-book creation in the humanities, and about the open access movement. His coverage of the past is about not just the history of the books, but the development of "History of the Book" as an academic discipline.Darnton is an engaging author, and there is much to enjoy in this book. It is, however, a collection of essays that have been adapted for publication as a monograph, and as a result it is somewhat uneven.
While the GBS is important, and its implications for libraries, authors, and readers need to be understood by all the stakeholders, I found this chapter difficult to get through, at least partly because it seems dated, having been written before the settlement was... settled.
The chapter on the future of libraries, and the entire last third of the book, "The Past", are wonderful, and I highly recommend them.
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LibraryThing member lady_mary_wroth
I bought this on a whim at the local indie bookstore yesterday and am incredibly happy I did. This book is a must read for anyone who works with reads, or loves books. The issues Darton presents are pressing and urgent in the age of digitalization and his position as a book historian provides good
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perspective on where books, knowledge, and information stand in the present age of instant, digital communication. Show Less
LibraryThing member sameer007
With an analysis of lawsuit settlement against Google Books Project as the backdrop, this author, an obvious authority on the subject, describessd the battle between ePublishing and print Publishing and predicts that both can happily co-exist, but cautions how projects like Google Books can become
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monopolistic, destructive to knowledge-sharing, greatly impacting user privacy, making public and university libraries exorbitantly expensive to fund/maintain/keep up to date and so forth. A very good read. Show Less
LibraryThing member mullinator52
This is a collection of essays by the author. The first third of this book I found fascinating and thought-provoking with the discussion of where bookselling, reading, and librarians are going. Most important was his discussion of Google books and its implications. The last two thirds of the book
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bogged down with history and scholarship which had no interest to me. One thing mentioned here of which I knew nothing, was the discussion of commonplace books. If you are interested in this topic get this book at a library and read the first third. Show Less
LibraryThing member waitingtoderail
The title here is a bit misleading, this isn't a straightforward monograph on the debate over the future of the book, but a series of previously published essays by the head librarian of Harvard University. Still, it's clear Darnton believes there is a future for the printed word, and his is a
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leading voice for public dissemination of knowledge rather than proprietary ownership. His first chapter on Google Books alone is worth the price of the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member jsoos
Darnton has put together 11 of his prevously published essays into the form of a book, organized roughly in the Future, Present and Past. Much of material overlaps and some of it annoyingly repetitive (e-Gutenberg). However, this volume is worth having for the history presented in the final third
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of the book, If nothing else, the 10th essay, "The Mysteries of Reading" is a fascinating discussion of how the use of books have migrated over the last several centuries, with a particuarly engaging discussion of commonplace books. The essay on "The Importance of Being Bibliographical" is also very well done. Finally, Darnton includes a valuable number of references and how those references relate to the various aspects of books. Show Less
LibraryThing member lisapeet
Ultimately outdated, as work on the Digital Public Library of America moves forward by leaps and bounds. But Darnton's first essays on the topic, in the New York Review of Books, were part of what inspired me to go back to school for my MLS, and I love following his train of thought through the
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book. Plus his musings on scholarship are just plain good. Show Less
LibraryThing member Amanda.Richards
I thought this was a pretty good read for those who would like to know about the recent history of books and how Google books is affecting the written word.
It is a bit repetitive as the book is a collection of scholarly articles, but an interesting read nonetheless. However I might suggest not
I am looking forward to starting a commonplace book! :)
It is a bit repetitive as the book is a collection of scholarly articles, but an interesting read nonetheless. However I might suggest not
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reading it all the way through in one go like I did, but rather use it more as reference.I am looking forward to starting a commonplace book! :)
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LibraryThing member lindap69
How could I not like a book about my favorite thing in the world - books! The essays were scholarly and a good challenge for my brain that has been happy with romance lately!
LibraryThing member Diana1952
I started reading this sometime back and picked it up again today. It seems to me that it's written a bit backwards and in a rather rambling style. It begins by making the argument in favor of printed books then goes into the stupidity that led to the destruction of books and papers due to
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microfilming and then into a small history of printing in the 1600s and a bit of a history of common place books by Jefferson and others with interpretations of their meanings. I'm not sure if the author lost his focus or was filling space as the latter chapters could have been made into a completely different book altogether and doesn't really have any relevance in the argument for or against paper books except somewhat tangentially as it applies to individual journals/scrapbook combinations that were published in the past. It was still an interesting read nonetheless even though I did eventually skip a bit of the chapter on monographs and the gutenberg e proposal. The contents of the proposal were really not relevant or particularly interesting. Show Less
LibraryThing member sublunarie
I'm having a hard time deciding what this book is more guilty of: false advertising or unreadable dryness.
If you think this is a book about the history of books and how books fit into people's lives differently in the new "eBook age", you would be wrong. As was I.
What Darnton has done here is slap
This book was originally published in 2009, when this mountain of information about GBS would have been up-to-date and possibly engaging. In 2015 it is already incredibly dated and uninteresting. When you throw in other articles written in the 1990s about the idea of books turning digital, it becomes a disjointed, and oftentimes discusses newspapers more than it does books themselves.
The major problem with throwing together all of these out-of-date articles, despite the fact that they sort of touch on the same subject, is that they become nothing but a repository about how one man saw the transformation of printed works move into the digital age as it happened. It creates no linear history and does not call into account a broader discussion of how these changes affected society on the whole.
I was intensely disappointed by the book and I feel almost shocked at how happy I am to be finished with it.
If you think this is a book about the history of books and how books fit into people's lives differently in the new "eBook age", you would be wrong. As was I.
What Darnton has done here is slap
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together ten or so essays he had written in the past (like from 30 years ago up to 7 years ago) that sort of, kind of, have to do with the way book publishing has changed as the world moved into the Internet age, but mostly they just go off-topic to long diatribes about his favorite 18th century works or endless thoughts about Google Book Search. (Honestly, in the first half of the book I was convinced this was just a book about Google Book Search and the lawsuits attached to it.)This book was originally published in 2009, when this mountain of information about GBS would have been up-to-date and possibly engaging. In 2015 it is already incredibly dated and uninteresting. When you throw in other articles written in the 1990s about the idea of books turning digital, it becomes a disjointed, and oftentimes discusses newspapers more than it does books themselves.
The major problem with throwing together all of these out-of-date articles, despite the fact that they sort of touch on the same subject, is that they become nothing but a repository about how one man saw the transformation of printed works move into the digital age as it happened. It creates no linear history and does not call into account a broader discussion of how these changes affected society on the whole.
I was intensely disappointed by the book and I feel almost shocked at how happy I am to be finished with it.
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LibraryThing member SESchend
A good book about Google, the issues on access and ownership of public domain books, and a few other topics of interest to bibliophiles and writers. Worth reading for me, though the latter half of the book might be a tad esoteric for non-bibliomaniacs.
LibraryThing member Devil_llama
As someone who loves books, I was delighted to find that someone had written a book defending books. Alas, the book spends more time defending e-books than actually defending books. The discussion was confused and rambling, and it really wasn't a satisfying read, except for a couple of chapters.
LibraryThing member keristars
The Case for Books is a collection of essays Robert Darnton wrote on the subject of books. Thus, though they're all about the same thing, more or less, the themes for each part vary, and the overall feeling I had while reading was that it was rather disjointed. It's a book to read in chunks, not
Despite the less than satisfying reading experience I had before I realized that I needed to not rush through the book, I found it enjoyable, interesting, and enlightening.
If there is one thing Darnton has to say about books and newspapers, it is that they are important. He is a historian, so this view probably isn't surprising, but I doubt anyone on LibraryThing would disagree with him.
The first two sections of the book contains essays about e-books, Google Books, copyright, and libraries. Like many people, Darnton is hopeful about the uses of digital media but isn't entirely willing to embrace them. He brings up microfilm and how it has not lasted very well, and how so many books and newspapers were destroyed or discarded in the process of converting them to microfilm/digital in the first waves of fear that the paper objects wouldn't stand the test of time. He also seems to have mixed feelings about Google Books. While he lauds the effort of making more books available to more people, he doesn't like that it is one company doing it (an effective monopoly), nor that libraries could have started first, but didn't. He also laments (like many of us) the loss of physicalness when books are scanned for the project - a lot can be learned from a physical book, but not from the digitized version.
The last section is about books in a historical sense, thus supporting the arguments made in the first two about the book objects. These essays cover bibliography, the act of reading, and the book trade. I found the essay about commonplace notes/reading interesting in light of arguments that the nature of reading is changing because of the way we engage with the Internet - it seems that the fractured attention without deep reading from beginning to end isn't new at all, since that is one way people read books and created their own commonplace books in the past. I also found the discussion of the bookseller Rigaud from Montpellier in the last essay interesting in light of the current economy for bookstores - I'm not sure I can make any definite links at the moment, but I think more reading about the book trade in France in the 1770s and 1780s could solidify the vague ideas I have now.
I borrowed this book from the library, but I'm very inclined to buy a copy for myself. I feel that it deserves a second or third read to fully assimilate Darnton's arguments, and many of the things he writes about are highly pertinent to the library school classes I will be taking in the next few semesters.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in the state of ebooks or in the history and future of books. It might not be something to sit down and read front to back all at once, but it's definitely worth a read.
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all at once, so that each section has time to settle before going into the next - this not only helps the disjointedness, it helps the essays from getting muddled together (as they were written at different times and not intended to be part of a whole, they sometimes repeat themselves).Despite the less than satisfying reading experience I had before I realized that I needed to not rush through the book, I found it enjoyable, interesting, and enlightening.
If there is one thing Darnton has to say about books and newspapers, it is that they are important. He is a historian, so this view probably isn't surprising, but I doubt anyone on LibraryThing would disagree with him.
The first two sections of the book contains essays about e-books, Google Books, copyright, and libraries. Like many people, Darnton is hopeful about the uses of digital media but isn't entirely willing to embrace them. He brings up microfilm and how it has not lasted very well, and how so many books and newspapers were destroyed or discarded in the process of converting them to microfilm/digital in the first waves of fear that the paper objects wouldn't stand the test of time. He also seems to have mixed feelings about Google Books. While he lauds the effort of making more books available to more people, he doesn't like that it is one company doing it (an effective monopoly), nor that libraries could have started first, but didn't. He also laments (like many of us) the loss of physicalness when books are scanned for the project - a lot can be learned from a physical book, but not from the digitized version.
The last section is about books in a historical sense, thus supporting the arguments made in the first two about the book objects. These essays cover bibliography, the act of reading, and the book trade. I found the essay about commonplace notes/reading interesting in light of arguments that the nature of reading is changing because of the way we engage with the Internet - it seems that the fractured attention without deep reading from beginning to end isn't new at all, since that is one way people read books and created their own commonplace books in the past. I also found the discussion of the bookseller Rigaud from Montpellier in the last essay interesting in light of the current economy for bookstores - I'm not sure I can make any definite links at the moment, but I think more reading about the book trade in France in the 1770s and 1780s could solidify the vague ideas I have now.
I borrowed this book from the library, but I'm very inclined to buy a copy for myself. I feel that it deserves a second or third read to fully assimilate Darnton's arguments, and many of the things he writes about are highly pertinent to the library school classes I will be taking in the next few semesters.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in the state of ebooks or in the history and future of books. It might not be something to sit down and read front to back all at once, but it's definitely worth a read.
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Collection
DDC/MDS
| 002.09 |
Original publication date
2009
Physical description
256 p.; 5.63 inches
ISBN
9781586489021