Posts Tagged Digital

Content with curation and hybrid books: The British Library pioneers the preservation of digital knowledge

Thursday, October 20th, 2011 | Author: Sojournposse Editor

By Zarina Holmes

REPORT: “Whatever is to become of books?” at London Design Festival 2011. “We are not seeing the world as flat anymore. We are seeing it virtually. The hypertext makes a big difference.” Dr Aquiles Alencar Brayner, Digital Curator of The British Library presents fresh findings on our fast-evolving book reading habit at Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, University College London.

While researching for “Whatever is to become of books?”, Sojournposse asked a collective of editors from design, anthropology, journalism and photography to examine the latest sociotechnical development affecting of the artefact.

The library was the best starting point to observe the current evolution of books and how we consume them today. We discover that librarians of today play a crucial role not only in preserving archives, but also to keep on top of the latest e-book formats.

On top of that, the librarians have to consider the mode of consumption of both digital natives and digital migrants who have different preferences in their digital formats.

“Content with curation is key,” said Dr Aquiles Alencar Brayner, Digital Curator of The British Library, who opened the event, “Whatever is to become of books?”, held University College London during the London Design Festival in September 2011.

“The electronic media is changing our reading habits. Some people think that it’s bad. Some people think that it’s good. We are becoming more democratic. There are no hierarchies anymore. There are only links.”

The sales of ebooks has increased by 318% in 2010, indicating that the ebook users spend more time reading, although in a more erratic manner. A poll conducted among 1200 ebook readers shows that 40% of respondents are reading more now than before.

The trend is pointing towards hybrid books. According to The British Library, by 2020, 20% of titles will be published only in paper format, 40% of titles will be published only in electronic format and 40% of publications in the UK will appear in both formats.

Publishers’ Digital Rights Management (DRM) poses a challenge for The British Library in archiving its collection.

DRMs are choking libraries

“We are chained to the shelves. We are chained by the publishers via DRMs,” says Dr Alencar Brayner. (See video Part 2 below).

Restrictions imposed by HarperCollins on the loan of ebooks to libraries (currently 26 loans) has shown that there is still little understanding of the user’s reading and access behaviour to online information.

Service for accessing ebooks is still tied to print publishing model while options to access digital content are still very tight and do not take into consideration the different user groups.

To remedy this, the market must offer new access models and greater flexibility in DRM.

The British Library is currently working with with Google in the digitisation of 250,000 titles published between 1700 to 1870 (40 million pages), a project which is due to start in 2012.

The videos of the British Library presentation at The London Design Festival 2011 are published in two parts. (See videos above). We hope you will find them resourceful and that they will give a clue as to where the journey of books is taking us next.

Links from The British Library talk

• The British Library 2020 Vision: http://www.bl.uk/2020vision

• JISC national e-books observatory project: http://www.jiscebooksproject.org/

Colaboration with other institutions (academic, governmental and commmercial partners) for the creation of interactive platforms:
1. Codex Sinaiticus: http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/
2. Gale World Scholar: http://www.galeuk.com/trialsite/
3. Turning the Pages: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/virtualbooks/

Is Facebook “material”? Rephrase that question

Saturday, November 6th, 2010 | Author: Salina Christmas

I use Facebook, but I don’t study Facebook in great depth. I was intrigued, however, by the online discussion taking place on Open Anthropology Cooperative, “Daniel Miller An Extreme Reading of Facebook”.

Naturally, my attention is focused not on Facebook itself, but on the topic of the ‘materiality’ of Facebook.

Prof Miller, who is behind the Material Culture division at our Department of Anthropology, University College London (UCL), stated on the forum: “In studying Facebook we need to resist the idea that it is a ‘thing’ with properties we are trying to discover and categorize. Mark Zukerberg intended it to be more like a utility e.g. like water or electricity, something ubiquitous in the background, and maybe he was not far wrong.”

Martin Newell's Utah Teapot was used a point of reference in our discussion. The whole point of the 3D rendering, and the 3D printout, which results in a teapot with no bottom, is to facilitate a discussion. That's why it's a "prototype".

To this, a poster responded: “Daniel Miller said: ‘In studying Facebook we need to resist the idea that it is a ‘thing’… Wow! – this is not the kind of discussion I expected to flow out of a paper by Danny Miller. Talk about fetishizing the social!

“Yet… Ilana Gershon said: ‘in your extreme reading of Facebook, how does the materiality of Facebook matter?”. This person went on to ask: “Why then this aversion to tackling Facebook’s ‘thinginess’, or indeed, in Ilana’s terms, its ‘materiality’? Let’s even allow Ingold to chime in (virtually!), to ask: what about its ‘materials’?”

Is software “material”? Rephrase the question, please

Timely discussion.

On 26 October 2010, our Digital Culture Reading & Research Group, organised by the Department of Anthropology, UCL, discussed Paul M Leonardi’s 2010 paper, Digital materiality: How artifacts without matter, matter. The session was chaired by our tutor, Dr Lane DeNicola.

The observations we arrived at with regards to the ‘materiality’ of the software:

1. You cannot judge ‘software’ in the matter / non-matter dichotomy, or in the conventional material / immaterial perimeter. That works for ceramics and chairs, but for software, it is limiting.

2. ‘Utility’ must be considered when looking at a software application.

3. Whilst it is problematic to approach the software using the matter / non-matter lens, this Design approach works: What makes something non-matter like a website a “design object”, as much as a chair that is created by a product designer? It’s the ‘objective’ behind the creation. If it has a purpose, it is a “design object” whether it’s software or hardware. Nope, this is not an anthropological theory, folks.

4. The similarity between Skype, a software application, and a table, a material artifact, is that both create “habits” in the user who uses both objects.

5. It is the way the software application is used that makes it material.

Insights inspired by the reading were made by our tutor, the MSc Digital Anthropology students (10/11), and other postgrad students at University College London. No, these insights are not fleshed out in essays yet, nor are they backed by empirical evidence and peer-reviewed, but just want to tell you guys these were the ideas that the group arrived at, and will no doubt continue to develop throughout our studies here at UCL.

It helped that some of the students involved in the discussion come from not only from pure social science backgrounds, but also from design, computer science and humanities.

I was particularly impressed by Observation No 4, made by Ian, one of my coursemates, who is also a product designer. See, you have to be an object maker to explain the object with conviction.

I think Prof Miller cottoned on to something there with regards to Facebook and ‘utility’. But I’ll leave the Facebook investigation to him, as that is not my area of digital expertise.