why we still need the physical book and what digital research adds to its history

Anne Welsh

Lecturer in Library & Information Studies

Paper in the brave new digital world:

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MA LIS / MA ARM / MA Digital Humanities

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/teaching/modules/instg012/

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“Bibliography is the discipline that studies texts as recorded forms, and the processes of their transmission, including their production and reception.”

~ D.F. McKenzie

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Types of Bibliography

• Enumerative bibliography– Listing books by topic, date, type or author

• Historical bibliography– Primarily the physical processes of book production

• Analytical bibliography– Identifying differences and the “ideal copy”

• Descriptive bibliography– Describing all the evidence about the book

• Textual bibliography– The text in relation to its transmission processes

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The life of books

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The bibliographer’s province

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Communications Circuit

Economic & social conjuncture

Author Publisher

Printers:CompositorsPressmenWarehousemen

Suppliers:PaperInk TypeLabour

Shippers:AgentsSmugglersEntrepot KeeperWaggoner, etc.

Booksellers:WholesellersRetailersPeddlersBinders, etc.

Readers:PurchasersBorrowersClubsLibraries

Political & legal

sanctions

Intellectual influences & publicity

After Darnton

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Books at the forefront of technology

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Recording watermarks

From: http://watermark.kb.nl/

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Electron radiography of watermarks

From: http://watermark.kb.nl/

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Online searchable watermark databases

Also: http://www.wm-portal.net/niki/index.php

From: http://watermark.kb.nl/

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Other innovations

• Digitised collections• from jpeg to pdf to fully-browsable

• Online catalogues• from card / paper to online (MARC)• from surrogate to full-text• from format-specific to institution-wide• from institutional to national to international

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Technology in the Brave New World

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Homogenisation?

‘There is nothing wrong in the whole wide world’ by Chris Cobb, 2005

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As it’s Burns Night ...

http://itunes.apple.com/

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Versioning in the digital collection

http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/burns/

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“Extreme Versioning”

Barker & Lucas, “Wicked Bible” 1631

Borel’s singes dactylographes more likely to produce millions of errors than text of the quality of Shakespeare ...

But is it the quantity or the quality of error that really matters?

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More typical versioning

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Store them? Preserve them? How?

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Digital versus print?

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Readers

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Readers

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=159

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Picture creditsSome of the pictures in these slides are copyright commons, some rights reserved:

vince42, http://www.flickr.com/photos/84609865@N00/3714671728/

posixeleni, http://www.flickr.com/photos/posixeleni/3563513903/

Kaotiqua, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaotiqua/131701845/

Diorama Sky, http://www.flickr.com/photos/diorama_sky/2975796332/

Librarian in Black, http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarianinblack/1392970571/

Elizabeth Beers, http://www.flickr.com/photos/brixton/150605829/

Topsy Qur’et, http://www.flickr.com/photos/topsy/204929063/

goXuno Reviews, http://www.flickr.com/photos/43602175@N06/4070018828/