Future communication

Future communication

Edited by B. Cope and A. PhilipsChandos PublishingOxford2006xx plus 226 pp.ISBN 1843342405

The Web’s Awake: An Introduction to the Field of Web Science and the Concept of Web Life

P. TetlowWiley,Hoboken NJ2007xxi plus 239 pp.ISBN 9780470137949,

These are two books which examine in detail the future of the communication of information, though from very different perspectives and focusing on very different issues and media.

The 15 contributions to the volume edited by Bill Cope and Angus Philips are based on papers given at the Third International Conference on the Book, held in 2005, and therefore inevitably dated in detail even as the book was published. However, the focus of several papers on longer-term issues and trends means that the book will have enduring value.

The book, and its component chapters, are based around two questions: what is the book’s future as a conduit for human creativity; and do new media, most particularly the internet, pose a threat or an opportunity? To these are added two “provocative propositions”: that the book will thrive as a “cultural and commercial artefact”, rather than being eclipsed; and that adoption of the proven information architecture of the book may be crucial to the success of the new media. The internet, they argue “sorely needs some of the skills of the old book trade”, particularly in quality control and in the organisation of information.

Several of the chapter authors, as well as the editors in their introduction and conclusion, take a historical perspective, dealing with the significance of the book as a way of representing the world. Along with the book were developed modern concepts of knowledge organisation, stemming from contents pages and indexes, our ideas of the intellectual development of a field, stemming from bibliographies and citations, and concepts of copyright and intellectual property. Indeed, the suggestion is made that there may not be so much difference between the printed book and its virtual competitors as is sometimes claimed, particularly in terms of the difference between linear and hypertextual access: books are not always read from start to finish, and the intellectual book tools of indexes, contents, footnotes, cross-references, and so on, are deisgned to accommodate this.

Of all the inventions of the second millennium, the editors suggest, the book has most shaped the modern world (though they admit that the historian Braudel preferred to give pride of place to the compass). This historical reflection provides a perspective from which to assess the internet revolution, and to coolly examine claims of utopia or apocalypse.

The editors wrestle with the question “what is a book?”, since the traditional understanding – a volume of text, printed onto 50 or more pages, bound between stiff covers, divided into self-contained chapters, and containing features such as title page, contents page, and index – is now outdated. They conclude that a book is now best regarded as “a structured rendition of text, and possibly also images”, with a characteristic communicative structure and having “book-like functions” – being listed in bibliographies, acquired through libraries and bookshops, and referenced as books. This understanding is largely independent of physical form, allowing for the convergence of print and e-text, and increasing the scope and reach of the book. These ideas are followed by other chapter authors, who treat a variety of topics and book environments, of which some examples will be mentioned.

Mark Perlman laments the tendency of American students to rely solely on the web for their research and reading, which he sees as reinforcing a superficial approach, lacking sustained following of a line of analysis or argument, which he regards as provided by books alone, and not by current web resources. He presents no long-term solutions, other than the hope that e-resources will evolve to support more in-depth work; though he offers an intriguing short-term fix of a bibliographic “show and tell”, by which his students must bring to class the printed books and journals which they cite in their assignments. He also suggests that “perhaps the place of books is safer in Europe than in short attention-span America” and that “it is difficult to imagine Britons turning their backs on books”. This reviewer wishes that he could share Perlman’s confidence.

Mihael Kovac and Mojca Kovac Sebert make a similar point, arguing that the content transmitted by printed books requires a different, more sophisticated, approach from readers than that from current e-resources. They set this argument into the context of their detailed analysis of the patterns of reading, and use of books in general, throughout Europe. Their conclusion, echoed by other contributors, is that the disappearance of the printed book would mean a radical change in the nature of culture, and of civilisation itself, if it were not replaced by new media, capable of transmitting similarly sophisticated knowledge.

Other chapters deal with media such as audiobooks, with the role of the small publisher, and with the bookshop; the latter said to be suffering from the rise of internet bookselling in much the same way as libraries from the advent of the web and of search engines, and responding in much the same ways. Audrey Laing and Jo Royle, for example, suggest that booksellers may offer a smaller and more carefully evaluated and personalised stock, and may offer a community focused “third space”; very much along the lines of suggestions made for public libraries. However, there are suggestions that some bookshop patrons may not approve, and may actively resent the coffee-shop approach and “lifestyle shopping”, which they feel is being forced on them; perhaps a warning for other information providers.

The chapters by John Feather, and by Maureen Brunsdale and Jennifer Hootman, directly address the implications of these changes for libraries and librarians. Although they deal with some relevant issues, these chapters seem rather limited in scope and depth, summed up by Feather’s closing section, which is entitled “An inconclusive conclusion” and begins “There are no easy answers”.

Although this book as a whole may not provide clear answers, still less easy ones, it does identify important issues, in need of more study and research, within the general field of “book studies”, now necessarily very broadly defined.

Philip Tetlow’s book is a very different creature: an individual, and idiosyncratic, race through a wide variety of subject matter, to reach conclusions about the way in which the world wide web, very much the threat to, and possible successor of, the printed book in Cope and Phillips’ presentation, is developing.

Tetlow, an IT practitioner who has been active on the committees developing web standards, poses a comparison between the web, the most complex software environment yet developed, and biological life. He sees the web as a kind of “truly natural entity”, which evolves in the same way as a biological organism, and is likely, he believes, to become self-conscious in the near future. His arguments are based essentially in complexity theory, and the emergence of complex behaviour from simple processes. In a broad ranging, and often difficult, thesis, he draws on mathematics, physics, biology, the theory of computation, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He touches on the vexed question of “what is information ?”, and centres some of his argument around Richard Dawkins’ views on life as an informational process. His conclusion is that the web already exhibits a kind of “swarm intelligence”, as seen in some insect colonies, with a form of memory.

This is a very different vision from that in the Cope and Phillips book; rather than web being “just” one of a number of new media, extending the capabilities of the printed book, it is here regarded as a new form of life. (Though one may be reminded of the visions of scholars of past ages of books silently conversing in libraries.) Tetlow’s book is a stimulating read, well referenced, and clearly and polemically argued, but rather lacking specific examples and evidence. Not entirely convincing, but very thought provoking, and an interesting complement to more conventional views of the future of communication.

Each of these books is valuable and interesting. Together they give an insight into many issues which will affect research and practice in LIS in the future.

David Bawden City University London, London, UK