few days ago you confessed you do not read many books as before because it must answer tons of email. In a culture increasingly inclined to digital it is not surprising. However, also said to prefer pleasure reading the printed page. Could you delve into this idea? I mean, as pleasure reading and books as objects of pleasure. My answer me exposed to the risk of sounding very old fashioned. And I want to avoid that risk by ensuring that as director of the Harvard University Library'm committed to all digital initiatives of the most varied. In fact, I just created the Laboratory of the Library to get ahead of the various techniques and make the best use of modern technologies. So I'm a fan of electronic media. That said, I must confess that I too am a lover of old books. Look around ... I have my own collection of eighteenth-century French books. I love the old paper ... touch it. You can feel it. It feels different. Smells different. When you read a book of the eighteenth century have a wonderful sense of touch with the past. So I also suffer from something the French call passeism, a fascination with the past that makes me a passéist, someone set in the past. At the same time try to be a futurist, which may sound like a contradiction extreme, but it is fun and interesting.
Much of my research is concerned with the role of books as a force for change in early modern Europe. To understand one must study the book as a physical object, in pamphlets, in leaflets, in volumes. Each of these forms communicate meaning through the paper, typography, page layout and also through the frontispiece, footnotes, appendices. All these techniques are known as paratexts. In my latest book The Devil in the Holy Water or the Art of Slander [The devil in holy water or the art of defamation], a treatise of 700 pages books that attack public figures including ministers, officials and fans in the France of Louis XIV going to Napoleon, I demonstrate that these books were bestsellers but were prohibited. What I do is go to the archives and read both the books banned as police files on those books. They are not expensive books, and never considered high literature, can be found in bookstores at reasonable prices. All this rodeo is to answer your question: I find that physical contact with books from the remote past is a true inspiration. I try to get into the mindset of people who read these books for three hundred years. There is a time machine that permits, but if you fish the tracks in the same books can begin to capture the attitude of readers. After looking for other sources of information in newspapers and marginal documents to confirm the hypothesis that you may have. So yes, I love books as physical objects.
is not a cliché to compare this kind of passion with fetishism.
do not know if you know there is a French manufacturer of electronic books that made an investigation with young readers in France, and the first thing I found is that people love the smell of books. So they invented a kind of band that you hit the machine and gives off a smell of old paper as you read on the screen. It may sound ridiculous but it is an example of the attachment that people have the codex, a contemporary invention of the birth of Christ. Personally, I am of those who believe that the codex form, ie as an object that you can browse, as is made of pages, as opposed to parchment to unroll a book, "is so great that it has survived more than two thousand years without major structural changes. Hence the pleasure of reading books: the sense of touch with the past and also the convenience of the qualities physical codex.
are an added pleasure in collecting books. That is something that still does not solve the electronic format.
book collectors are very particular. Although it may in the future people collect e-mails and e-books, which I doubt, I think that this consideration is not an argument against the books, academic journals and other electronic information sources. I insist on the compatibility of the printed book and eBook. Some argue we are in the information age and that everything must be digital. That is false, not everything is digital and should not be. Not all information is available online and, paradoxically, each year more books are published on paper than last year. While I believe that we are in a period of transition to a digital future that will be strongly in our present communication is defined largely by print. And I think that is very good, because each form has specific advantages.
I love an idea I read in one of his books, research libraries, ie university libraries are places to preserve the past and accumulating energy for the future. However, we live in a world where knowledge comes more and more electronically while away from the sanctuaries. How to understand the role of libraries in the world today?
I'm afraid I disagree with that knowledge comes only online. Perhaps you did not say "solo", but that's my point. We live in an era of mixed media, not just the mix of electronic and print, but many other mixtures such as sound and image. For example, a research library such as Harvard spends millions of dollars in films, recordings and electronic resources. We live in a world in which information takes different forms and libraries must store that diversity of media to provide the service you have scheduled. That does not mean that libraries will stop buying books. Beyond this issue, the formats of digital information poses serious problems of preservation, electronic texts are very fragile and its conservation is very difficult. A book is a great machine preservation. Until we resolve the issue of retention of electronic texts, we will have to print electronic texts important to be sure they will survive. The printed and electronic world coexist in the same environment of information and must operate on the front analog and digital front at once.
do you think of the contrast between the libraries as places of memory and a society marked by speed and obsolescence.
One of the weaknesses of American society is its limited depth of knowledge of the past. Americans tend to live in the future. In the current context speed of things, we can say that this trend has advantages and disadvantages. Many Americans lack a proper education in history, which, in discussing the affairs of this, they lack the depth that usually provides historical knowledge. I'm not the kind of historian who thinks we can learn lessons from the past, at least lessons can be applied. But I do believe that knowledge gives perspective. And that is the crucial role of libraries. Now, that role is played and will play not just stacking books, but also offers electronic resources for research. Often people do not realize that libraries are the channels through it goes all kinds of services and electronic resources. When a person receives an email for granted the rest of the process without wondering how it happens. This happens because the libraries. Not only because we provide electronic services, but also because we help people to orient themselves in this confusing world. The feeling of confusion is growing all the time and we need guides to help us find the relevant information to get where we want. That gives them as much or more importance than they had in the past.
Reading is an act very differently to previous generations that those born in the digital age.
I have little talent for predicting the past. Neither intention to be a prophet of the future. The past has taught us, however, some things about the nature of reading. We tend to assume the act of reading has always been assumed that what we do to pass the text view. But in fact, reading is a long and complex phenomenon. Always in motion. So, to some extent, the guys who are used to screen from birth develop different reading habits. I do not know what those habits, I know of studies that suggest that young people are losing their familiarity with the reading of "cover to cover", ie reading a book from beginning to end. His threshold of attention is usually shorter and tend to think that the information reaches them eat nuggets, not by more extensive forms of information, and also in other ways than the book. So if reading becomes a form from a wide range of information, these young people are in danger of losing an important skill. It is a problem. I'm not sure how to resolve it, but I think there is hope. Not trying to sound like a Jeremiah because I think part of the solution comes from technological progress. For example, the machine that makes books on demand, a machine that can download a book online and print it in four minutes. It is a paperback book with a very accessible price, usually less than ten dollars. So you can print any book available in a database that has millions of titles. This involves the use of technology to expand the possibilities of reading the book in one of its most traditional forms, both in libraries and in bookstores.
You are a passionate promoter of the Enlightenment. Why in his view, the Enlightenment is an important concept for the future?
The word "Enlightenment" has two different meanings. The first describes a specific historical period (in essence, the time of the Encyclopedists in Europe) and, of course, we can not analyze it simplistic. The second meaning is understood that this is a set of ideals that, one way or another, stays in force. Among others, the idea of \u200b\u200ba free and open communication. The leaders of the Enlightenment believed in the printed word as a liberating force. They thought that if one could express arguments rational, printed, made them move and promoting reading, was to promote freedom of the people while they attacked the prejudices often associated with the unthinking belief in orthodox systems such as Catholicism. But his bid for freedom went far beyond Catholicism. They also believed it necessary to release the inequalities of human beings: of men over women, nobles over the bourgeoisie, landlords over the peasants. The early modern world was beset by inequalities. The Enlightenment was a challenge against the system of privileges in access to knowledge and culture. Often, the thinkers of the Enlightenment disagreed among themselves, however, believed in the liberating effect of print culture. I think it is possible to adapt this idea to the electronic world. What is really important in the electronic culture is that it allows mass access to all kinds of knowledge. This is not to deny the existence of so-called digital divide. Many people in developing countries and the United States does not have access to the Internet. But the potential for everyone to contact the knowledge is there. And I think in the next ten years will see an expansion of access to places where until now the technology has not come through access centers that will reach the entire world literature. This is an example of how, in a world where inequality still exists, the transition to culture can be democratized. I have great hope in the democratic function of technology and that is, in my opinion, one of the ideals of the Enlightenment.
In an essay, "E-Books and Old Books" ("Electronic books and old books"), you say that McLuhan's prophecy about the death of the book did not come true quite the contrary: every time you print more books. However, devices like the Kindle or iPad introduce a substantial change and massive reading and the idea book as a material object. Are not we about the future of McLuhan, even though each year it printed more titles? Does the book as an object to prevail in this new-new information age?
Certainly, the book can prevail. Be part of a wide range of media, but always has been. In my research on the eighteenth century in Europe, I found that books were important vehicles of the Enlightenment, but the songs were equally important, not to mention gossip and other forms of oral exchange. Today we have communication Twitter, blogs and all kinds of media different from the traditional book. That makes no sense to discuss it. But is this the future of McLuhan? I think not. McLuhan focused on television and on the notion of "hot media" versus "cold environments." The digital world that did not exist when McLuhan wrote The Gutenberg Galaxy, can be considered a cold world of media instead of a hot media world, if you want to use their categories. By this I mean that is a world that involves a reader that reads a text, whether that text is a tweet or not. That's very different type of content that McLuhan thought that would result from the relationship between the television screen and the viewer. In fact, many forms of communication are interactive. For example, Web 2.0, which is the mutual communication through the Internet, is very different from what he had in mind. McLuhan is undoubtedly very entertaining to read, although many of my students have no idea who he was. His books are still very interesting, but technological progress has left him just out of touch.
As director of one of the most important libraries in the world, you were close to the Google Book Search, a project to create the largest digital library in the world. Despite the general enthusiasm about this initiative, you warned about various aspects that would threaten free access to knowledge and information. Could you briefly explain what the problems with that project?
We were talking about the democratizing potential of technology. In this regard, one of the things I admire most about Google is exactly that. His ambition is to digitize, according to what they say, all the books in the world. Obviously, it is impossible, but it can scan millions of books. We currently have 12 million books in its database every day and continue scanning books. Within a year could reach twenty million. This means that although they can not make available all books in the world, can offer all the literature in English available in the U.S.. Literature in other languages \u200b\u200bcould follow this trend. It is a noble idea, no doubt. What worries me is that Google is a commercial company whose primary mission is to make money and meet their partners. There is nothing wrong about it. But the goal of libraries is very different. This leads to a contradiction between what is supposed to make a library and the primary purpose of a company like Google. The issue is whether we can resolve this contradiction through some kind of commitment.
What would be the way to resolve this contradiction?
hope to persuade Google to take their digital database consisting of millions of books, and turn it into the National Digital Library. Of course, due to copyright, we could not do it with books that are currently outstanding, but this initiative would include all books that are publicly and perhaps many books that are protected by copyright but are out of circulation . Even, I think you could put advertising on these digital books, because that is what really living companies like Google. This could be done without hurting anyone, and gaining the respect and admiration of the public for their contribution to the common good. However, Google is not ready to take this step and, in fact, the agreement reached with the authors and publishers is just one way of dividing the cake: 35% for Google and the remaining 65% for publishers and authors . But what readers and libraries? So far not part of the agreement. So if the agreement, as it is, is accepted by the court which is now discussed, and I do not think it will, "Google Book Search can determine the future of digital books. As you see, is a gamble too strong. So we need safeguards to prevent the imposition of excessive prices for access to digital databases, but also to guard against violations of our privacy. Google already has amassed a vast amount of information about us as individuals, it may explode. Imagine when you also know exactly what to read. This element is very powerful when it is the scale of an entire population. And it is just one of many unfortunate aspects of the agreement. Do not speak for Harvard University, but by me. The agreement has the real potential to democratize knowledge, but also could create a monopoly position in the world of information. It is a matter too important, a potential source of conflict. So I feel we need to solve.
Is the democratization of knowledge, in his opinion, an achievable goal in a world largely controlled by private corporations?
I think so, although I can be naive: I am a historian and not a businessman. When I have had to propose a project to any company or institution, I always ask, "Well, where is your business plan." I reply that I am an academic and not a businessman. However, I know they are entitled to ask that question because many of these projects are large, complex and expensive. The budget Harvard Library, which is actually a network of more than 60 libraries, over 150 million dollars. It's a huge operation, so you have to bring in the most effective and economical manner. So I take very seriously the fact that reality is immersed in the corporate world, but that does not mean that there are concrete ways to advance the common good, despite all the commercial interests that surround it. My goal is to create in America the National Digital Library that can put all the books available to all citizens. I hope to become an international library and be part of a network to put the knowledge available of all. It sounds utopian, I know. But I think we can create the National Digital Library if you persuade Google, and some important foundations of this country, to join in a coalition to digitize large collections of books, such as Harvard or the New York Public Library or the Library of U.S. Congress, of financing the gradual digitization of entire collections but doing so carefully and appropriately, because so far Google has done it like a bulldozer making many mistakes. This may take ten years but will be something for all mankind. Also, I'm sure it will be too expensive. You can do what lacking is will.
Where appropriate, it seems certain that it is a technology enthusiast. It even has an electronic book.
I posted an e-book, I've been blogging, I experimented with electronics and at this particular time I am writing two e-books. One of them has taken me a long time and has to do with the publication and exchange of books in eighteenth-century France. The other is ready and will be published in fall by Harvard University Press. It is a book of songs and poems about street of Paris. In the end, is a study of communication in oral societies. In the streets of the century Paris XVIII people took the songs from the repertory and every day improvised new lyrics to these old songs. Everyone was in his mind the same repertoire of songs, so that anyone could easily write a poem related to current issues. I have evidence for this because people wrote the new verses of songs on paper and then transcribed in a song-called notebooks. There are thousands of these songs improvised songs, which are available in major research libraries in Paris. Many of these songs, for example, talk of political crises, particularly the crisis of 1749, when the government fell. One of the most peculiar was the sound, that is, the musical of the songs. All were written in accordance with the melody, but as these tunes have long disappeared from collective memory of the French, no one had heard the songs. However, thanks to a specialized library of music could be given with musical notation and reconstruct the melody. Now, in Paris, a friend of mine, Elaine DuLavaud, which is a cabaret singer, has recorded songs with original music. With this, the reader of the book will go to its online version and listen to songs while reading the lyrics in French and my English version. This is a small example, quite simple, how print media can be combined with electronic media in new ways. It is as if we could hear the past, so to speak.
hope to persuade Google to take their digital database consisting of millions of books, and turn it into the National Digital Library. Of course, due to copyright, we could not do it with books that are currently outstanding, but this initiative would include all books that are publicly and perhaps many books that are protected by copyright but are out of circulation . Even, I think you could put advertising on these digital books, because that is what really living companies like Google. This could be done without hurting anyone, and gaining the respect and admiration of the public for their contribution to the common good. However, Google is not ready to take this step and, in fact, the agreement reached with the authors and publishers is just one way of dividing the cake: 35% for Google and the remaining 65% for publishers and authors . But what readers and libraries? So far not part of the agreement. So if the agreement, as it is, is accepted by the court which is now discussed, and I do not think it will, "Google Book Search can determine the future of digital books. As you see, is a gamble too strong. So we need safeguards to prevent the imposition of excessive prices for access to digital databases, but also to guard against violations of our privacy. Google already has amassed a vast amount of information about us as individuals, it may explode. Imagine when you also know exactly what to read. This element is very powerful when it is the scale of an entire population. And it is just one of many unfortunate aspects of the agreement. Do not speak for Harvard University, but by me. The agreement has the real potential to democratize knowledge, but also could create a monopoly position in the world of information. It is a matter too important, a potential source of conflict. So I feel we need to solve.
Is the democratization of knowledge, in his opinion, an achievable goal in a world largely controlled by private corporations?
I think so, although I can be naive: I am a historian and not a businessman. When I have had to propose a project to any company or institution, I always ask, "Well, where is your business plan." I reply that I am an academic and not a businessman. However, I know they are entitled to ask that question because many of these projects are large, complex and expensive. The budget Harvard Library, which is actually a network of more than 60 libraries, over 150 million dollars. It's a huge operation, so you have to bring in the most effective and economical manner. So I take very seriously the fact that reality is immersed in the corporate world, but that does not mean that there are concrete ways to advance the common good, despite all the commercial interests that surround it. My goal is to create in America the National Digital Library that can put all the books available to all citizens. I hope to become an international library and be part of a network to put the knowledge available of all. It sounds utopian, I know. But I think we can create the National Digital Library if you persuade Google, and some important foundations of this country, to join in a coalition to digitize large collections of books, such as Harvard or the New York Public Library or the Library of U.S. Congress, of financing the gradual digitization of entire collections but doing so carefully and appropriately, because so far Google has done it like a bulldozer making many mistakes. This may take ten years but will be something for all mankind. Also, I'm sure it will be too expensive. You can do what lacking is will.
Where appropriate, it seems certain that it is a technology enthusiast. It even has an electronic book.
I posted an e-book, I've been blogging, I experimented with electronics and at this particular time I am writing two e-books. One of them has taken me a long time and has to do with the publication and exchange of books in eighteenth-century France. The other is ready and will be published in fall by Harvard University Press. It is a book of songs and poems about street of Paris. In the end, is a study of communication in oral societies. In the streets of the century Paris XVIII people took the songs from the repertory and every day improvised new lyrics to these old songs. Everyone was in his mind the same repertoire of songs, so that anyone could easily write a poem related to current issues. I have evidence for this because people wrote the new verses of songs on paper and then transcribed in a song-called notebooks. There are thousands of these songs improvised songs, which are available in major research libraries in Paris. Many of these songs, for example, talk of political crises, particularly the crisis of 1749, when the government fell. One of the most peculiar was the sound, that is, the musical of the songs. All were written in accordance with the melody, but as these tunes have long disappeared from collective memory of the French, no one had heard the songs. However, thanks to a specialized library of music could be given with musical notation and reconstruct the melody. Now, in Paris, a friend of mine, Elaine DuLavaud, which is a cabaret singer, has recorded songs with original music. With this, the reader of the book will go to its online version and listen to songs while reading the lyrics in French and my English version. This is a small example, quite simple, how print media can be combined with electronic media in new ways. It is as if we could hear the past, so to speak.
His idea of \u200b\u200ban eBook is an object that has many layers and in that sense, it can amplify the traditional reading.
Yes, another book I'm preparing is much more complex to that extent, it invites the reader to navigate through notes and other layers of meaning and information. The reader can immerse themselves in very different levels of reading. For example, can be read on a device like the Kindle or iPad and accompany the reading with a version made in a machine-demand printing of a book containing what interested him, not me. Electronic technology can give the reader a power that becomes much more active in building a historical argument.
In that sense, you look like a follower of Jorge Luis Borges and his library of Babel.
Borges thought of such things long ago and came forward several decades to a phenomenon that we are only beginning to understand.
What makes the books an artifact of culture so durable?
Part of your stay is the indisputable fact that the book is a machine. Technology comes from the codex. That is, a machine that connects words very effectively, both before and after the invention of printing. The materials of which has been done will give a tremendous resistance to weather. This book I have in my hands is three hundred years old and in great condition. Although the plaster can deteriorate quickly, your pages will endure three or four hundred years, indicating that the books are the product of developing a very efficient technology. People do not think about that and believes that the books are there, period. Second, the books belong to our culture, are stuck in their guts to the point that we are his workmanship, we are cultures of the book. Remember that the codex accompanied the spread of Christianity, so that the book is with us since the dawn of Christianity. We are not aware of how deeply rooted are the books in our lives. The rise of electronic communication seems to have eclipsed that familiarity, giving us what I call a false consciousness about the nature of the information and called information society. I argue that every society has been an information society. Only that information is conveyed in other ways.
Yes, another book I'm preparing is much more complex to that extent, it invites the reader to navigate through notes and other layers of meaning and information. The reader can immerse themselves in very different levels of reading. For example, can be read on a device like the Kindle or iPad and accompany the reading with a version made in a machine-demand printing of a book containing what interested him, not me. Electronic technology can give the reader a power that becomes much more active in building a historical argument.
In that sense, you look like a follower of Jorge Luis Borges and his library of Babel.
Borges thought of such things long ago and came forward several decades to a phenomenon that we are only beginning to understand.
What makes the books an artifact of culture so durable?
Part of your stay is the indisputable fact that the book is a machine. Technology comes from the codex. That is, a machine that connects words very effectively, both before and after the invention of printing. The materials of which has been done will give a tremendous resistance to weather. This book I have in my hands is three hundred years old and in great condition. Although the plaster can deteriorate quickly, your pages will endure three or four hundred years, indicating that the books are the product of developing a very efficient technology. People do not think about that and believes that the books are there, period. Second, the books belong to our culture, are stuck in their guts to the point that we are his workmanship, we are cultures of the book. Remember that the codex accompanied the spread of Christianity, so that the book is with us since the dawn of Christianity. We are not aware of how deeply rooted are the books in our lives. The rise of electronic communication seems to have eclipsed that familiarity, giving us what I call a false consciousness about the nature of the information and called information society. I argue that every society has been an information society. Only that information is conveyed in other ways.
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