Online Learning Update Ray Schroeder, editor, OTEL - University of Illinois at Springfield

Bobby Approved (v 3.2)
Monday, June 18, 2001

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/current_issue/lynch/index.html

Defining the Book in a Digital World

Abstract
Commercial publishing interests are presenting the future of the book in the
digital world through the promotion of e-book reading appliances and
software. Implicit in this is a very complex and problematic agenda that
re-establishes the book as a digital cultural artifact within a context of
intellectual property rights management enforced by hardware and software
systems. With the convergence of different types of content into a common
digital bit-stream, developments in industries such as music are
establishing precedents that may define our view of digital books. At the
same time we find scholars exploring the ways in which the digital medium
can enhance the traditional communication functions of the printed work,
moving far beyond literal translations of the pages of printed books into
the digital world. This paper examines competing visions for the future of
the book in the digital environment, with particular attention to questions
about the social implications of controls over intellectual property, such
as continuity of cultural memory....

 



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