The E-Book Effect
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The E-Book Effect Rob Cagna, Library Director West Virginia University Charleston Health Sciences Library www.twitter.com/rcagna www.slideshare.net/cagna
Transcript of The E-Book Effect
The E-Book Effect
Rob Cagna, Library DirectorWest Virginia University
Charleston Health Sciences Librarywww.twitter.com/rcagna
www.slideshare.net/cagna
What we’ll examine
• Old ways of how students gathered material• New ways; new formats• What’s good• What may be problematic
“Old” ways of getting a book
• From teacher/school• School library• Public library• Interlibrary loan• Local bookstore• Scholastic Reading Club (book orders)• Book Fairs(All still in use!)
But now, new access points…
E-book readersDesktop computersLaptopsTabletsSmartphones
Some benefits of e-books
• Portability• Access• Price• Adaptability (font size, speaking ability, etc.)• Multimedia content• Interactive, assessed reading with title
recommendations (ex: myON)
Closer than we think!
De Humani Corporis Fabrica
• "The Fabrica"• by Andreas Vesalius
• How has this author and book influenced online content, and how have others interpreted the original content?
Vesalius’s life
• 1514-1564• Born in Brussels to a health sciences family• Studied at the University of Louvain, the
University of Paris, and the University of Padua
• Was a professor at the University of Padua; occasionally at Pisa and Bologna
• Studied Galen's teachings
Vesalius’s life (continued)Broke with tradition; did
showcase dissection demonstrations by himself
rather than telling someone else what to do while he
lectured; started to notice Galen was wrong in many
points of his writings, perhaps because Galen primarily used non-human animals to learn
about anatomic structure
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/vesaliusgallery.htm
Vesalius’s masterpiece: the Fabrica
• De Humani Corporis Fabrica• Published in 1543 by Johannes Oporinus; text
and drawings were clear and sharp• The drawings are believed to have been done
by Titian’s school (van Calcar), perhaps some by Titian himself, and are amazing even today
• Text was in Latin and instructed readers how to do their own dissections
• It revolutionized anatomy and physiology
Free versions of “The Fabrica”
• A free scan of the book is available at Google Books via Google Play
• A free preview of an English translation is available via Google Books, too
NLM (National Library of Med.)
Turning the Pages Onlinehttp://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/vesalius/vesalius.html
University of Glasgow
Online exhibit with selected images and general information
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/sep2002.htm
Becker Library, St. Louis University
http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/vesalius/index.html
The Epitome Edition
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30027161
Fabrica and the Epitome
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30027161
Poetry (and Sound)
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (John Burnside)
after Vesalius
I know the names of almostnothing...
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/de-humani-corporis-fabrica
Plays
Vesalius: A Requiem (London, 1996)
http://variouspeople.com.au/productions/vesalius-a-requiem/
Dead for 450 years…but on Facebook
Vesalius on Twitter
Vesalius Conference 2015http://vesalius.wustl.edu/schedule.html
De Humani Google Images
Map the book: Google Maps
French translation in progresshttp://www3.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/vesale/debut.htm
Vesalius on the TV News
http://www.brusselnieuws.be/en/video/tvbrussel
Vesalius Anatomy Card Gamehttp://www.kindersleyworkshop.co.uk/vesalius-card-game/
The 21st century is awesome!
What do we lose with e-books?
What do we lose with e-books?
• Sense of size• Sense of weight, heft, gravitas• Books as architecture (William Morris) • Page turning (noise, crinkling of pages, type of
paper and its feel)• Marginalia and fingerprints (possibly)• Texture, binding, tobacco-whiskey smell• Expressive, haptic nature (possibly)
What do we lose? (continued)
• Concrete poetry may lose its font type, font size, ink, kerning, layout, white space, page size, paper type, etc. when being reformatted as an e-book and/or when the end user manipulates the settings
• Possible loss of some content recall ability?
Encourage students to enter the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contesthttp://www.abaa.org/ncbcc/the-national-collegiate-book-collecting-contestEnter by the end of May!
Questions?
Rob Cagna, Library DirectorWest Virginia University
Charleston Health Sciences [email protected]
Twitter www.twitter.com/rcagnaFacebook www.facebook.com/robertcagna
slideshare www.slideshare.net/cagna
