The books are not dying in the digital age - Essay Example

18 March The Books are not Dying in the Digital Age Introduction: Books are the treasure- house of knowledge. Books are so familiar with us since, the time of ages. All sorts of knowledge that the human race has observed so far has been summed up in our books. All persons especially students can make use of books for their knowledge. A good student never satisfies himself just by getting knowledge from the mere syllabus. But he seeks the help of the books to clear all his doubts. Before the innovation of many other sources, books had the prime importance for acquiring knowledge, because the society can be easily operated by the written words. For example: When observing the history, one can see that one of the revolutionary changes of society and world was through the enlightenment by books. Nowadays, the books are being digitalised. There is no need for the printing press and for papers as before. Nevertheless, it is not possible to digitalise the entire information as when one needed. The changes which are begun by the information are conveyed through television and also, it is through the medium of cyberspace which acts as their existence. The importance of reading is diminished when people are being dependent on television and internet for entertainment. Television stole one’s attention through the sensational programs which does not make any benefit as compared to a book, where one’s acquiring knowledge through reading. Nowadays, books can be seen as digitalised. E-book has got its recognition in the present times. The recognition is through internet with computers and by other electronic devices such as ipad, tablets. Book printing is becoming impoverished mainly in the context of the rise of computers and internet. Nevertheless, another form of reading a book is known as E-book and has got its precedence at these times. Printed book reading is deteriorating and the E- books are getting more popular in the digital age. Literature Review: Books are only in the form of printed paper material till the recent periods. Earlier times onwards, books were quite popular before they became familiar with the common people. In those periods, books were expensive, and were available only for the upper class people. And it became popular only after the invention of printing press and the publication of Bible. Books provided a huge amount of knowledge by solving one’s suspicions in certain subjects. Books are of several kinds, which are- encyclopaedia, magazine, novels, short stories, diaries and so on. Significance of books can be divided into several forms. Practicing by reading books for children; it will help the development of critical and analytical thinking, vocabulary, language, communication skills and writing skills. Books are automatically influencing children when they read rather than they being-spoon fed. For an elderly person, books help to build a concrete self-image through self-consciousness and give them a way of improving their self. There was a study about the debate on the future of books in US in 2004 among 17000 adults. They found that the people who are reading literature are less than half of the adult population. “Reading levels are higher amongst those with a higher-level of education, but reading has still declined amongst every educational grouping. Whereas previously young adults (18 to 34) read the most, they are now the group least likely to read” (Cope & Phillips p.1). The rejection of reading is linked with the increased use of visual and electronic media’s including internet and video games. Jason Epstein, one of the most important personalities who were a part of the invention of revolutionary modern publishing, the paperback book. In his book, Book Business: Publishing in the past, present, and future; he mentioned about the future of books. The innovation was not merely on a single technology, but a combined form of technologies such as printing, the electronic and internet book readers. These have a common logic- digitization. These technologies are different with each other in some respects. Everything is changing in the book trade. It is because of the changes of technologies in book printing, digitalising management, various design tools, content systems and in many other aspects. Nowadays, one can collect the needed information from the internet. The recent times are witnessing the competition between books and book like formats from the internet. Even if the E-book reading tablets have certain limitations, there are billions of PDF formats, which are the E-book texts that are downloaded, since it was invented in 1990. And the books such as encyclopaedia are replaced by various other internet formats. The communicative equipment can be found in the electronic formats. The E-book has been developing with the five hundred periods of technology of books hence, the definition of books are also changing along with it. It is not considered as a thing nowadays and it may be defined in many other ways including electronic, visual and audio- which is also known as talking books and also it’s informative in nature. The recognition of books diminishes not only because of the E-books and PDF formats, but also due to the invention of television and many other entertainment devices. Television has an increasing growth in its formats and it has been recognised as the most popular entertaining medium in the world. The innovation of computers and the internet also made a great change in spot of entertainment. Nowadays, video games are another aspect of entertainment. “At one extreme, an older medium is highlighted and represented in digital form without apparent irony or critique. Examples include CD-ROM (or DVD) picture galleries (digitized paintings or photographs) and collection of literary works” (Bolter & Grusin) The history of E-books is the result of widespread use of desktop computers and the traditional book reading style has been changed. They were replaced by the electronic context. The traditional books have the historical priority for acquiring knowledge.”The idea that electronic "books" will "supersede the limitations" of paper-based books and overcome the "drawbacks" of traditional books features largely in such promotional claims” (Drucker par.3) The E-book formats can be improved by the fixed, static and finite forms of the traditional book. And the electronic presentations are just imitating the features of traditional books which are the opinion of some observers. The literature on E-books shows the perseverance of the concrete condition about the traditional books. Many of them such as voyagers, many adventures have predicted the commencement of online formats, even before the World Wide Web (WWW) was invented. They used CD and other devices which has a lot of storage capacity. But they discarded this development because the audiences were not much aware about the digital formats. Nevertheless, in the same decade, they got popularised on net worldwide. The hypermedia became familiar and the E-book industry becomes nourished. There was a detachment to E-books formats because of the use of traditional book format in electronic space. These added a new way to the promotion of communications through virtual space. Another important development was in the field of tele-communication. There were drawbacks on the traditional books as a result; E-books were formulated in this aspect. There are so many features for the traditional books, which can also be done by using the E-books. The E-books have the benefit of refreshing the updates which are done functionally. These are formulated uniquely in the digital media, even if the links are in traditional form. Links either shows the information or reclaim from it, if they do not have the specified data. The format of E-books are same in the form of the traditional book format such as data stamping and annotation of the history and specifying the particular relation which are specified in the text. E-books are having the benefit of hyper linking, customizability, low costs, data density, on linearity, search ability and other multimedia features. Hence, the new age students have been attracted by the growing technologies for their higher education. Most of the learning process is discussed through E-contents. And in schools, they are using digital formats in screen for teaching rather than using the paper. E-books are one example of E- content. The E-books are defined in many forms. One of the important one is by Abbott and Kelly in 2004. They defined E- book as a scanned version of the printed publication, which helps the reader by its characteristics of multimedia hyperlinks and many other features. As a result of the popularity of E-books, it got the benefit as there is no need to print and the electronic format are more advanced. The discussion on E- book was basically aimed in library and literary communities. But some of the readers are experienced and reading on screen is disagreeable. At the same extent, the new generation readers were in favour to read E-books. The aspect of uninteresting people to read on screen, E- books are needed to change its own identities. Smart phones are made as result of this suggestion with high quality format. The advantages of E-books were used by medical practitioners. They are highly portable, issues of battery life, slow page turning, readability and compatibility. The role of E-books in academic and business fields is significant. In the traditional books, one need to search the book in the library, which is time consuming rather than searching for an E-book. In E-book one needs to click on the appropriate link and the corresponding information will pass immediately after the click on it. A study made by Bond University in Australia on E-book usage attained the conclusion that E- books can have various dimensions to the learning atmosphere in a proper context. There are two major types of E- books, which are: electronic version of a whole text and the printed version. So many individuals assume that it is the electronic version of books only. But E-books actually provide a real version of printed books through internet. Non- conventional thinkers are accepting almost all sorts of electronic sources. They opined that a CD ROM, a website or even an e-mail can be considered as an E-book. The E-books are becoming popular after the Project Gutenberg by Michael Hat in 1971. His vision was to acquire information through internet. It was claimed that there are around 5000 E- books in the Project Gutenberg collection, which was categorized into three forms: light literature, reference work and heavy literature. Hence, there are a group of academic publishers who are interested in E- books, but they have not done any formats of E-book. Conclusion: The significance of book is improving nowadays; but not in the form of printed format. The internet and electronic resources are growing every day. New technologies are developing and it reduces the demerits of the former devices in any other aspect. There were various other entertainment devices that reduced the interest in books; this also leads to the development of technology. Also the traditional way of book printing was used in the recent times, but with the advancement in technology it caused a change in the conventional method of approaching in response towards books. It had so many benefits over the years i.e., the history of the world cannot change into an electronic format. In such situations, one can depend on only the printed books. One of the important characteristic about printed book is that the readers mostly like to read printed books rather than E- content devices. Hence of these characteristics, the books are not dying in the digital age. Works Cited Bolter, Jay David. & Grusin, Richard. Remediation. Print. Cope, Bill. & Phillips, Angus. The Future of the Books in the Digital Age. n.d. Web. 18 March 2013.http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/resources/IntroThe%20FutureoftheBookintheDigitalAge.pdf Drucker, Johanna. The Virtual Codex from Page space to E-Space. The Book Arts Web. 1995. Web. 18 March 2013. http://www.philobiblon.com/drucker/ Read More