Transferred Illusions: Digital Technology and the Forms of Print

Citation

Oliver, G. (2010), "Transferred Illusions: Digital Technology and the Forms of Print", Online Information Review, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 349-350. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011037043

This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in print, its history, the current state of the art and its future in the age of the Internet.

The book is an ambitious undertaking, as it provides what appears to be comprehensive coverage of the changing environment in which printed texts are published in just over 200 pages. Not surprisingly, therefore, the writing is quite dense – there is a lot of content to be explored. However, the ideas and concepts discussed are well worth the effort spent in reading this book, and those who persevere will be rewarded.

The authors describe the scope of the book as the forms and institutions of print, but note that blogs are scarcely dealt with and social networking sites are omitted altogether. So perhaps the key word is “institutions”, those traditional manifestations associated with print that are still fundamental to our lives, i.e. newspapers, books, scholarly editions, publishing and libraries. The audience for this book is a specialist one, described by the authors as:

… the community we know best, that of scholarly libraries, writing and publishing, teachers and researchers in the arts and humanities, a community whose established expertise and authority are increasingly challenged by the methods of communication fostered by the internet …

But there should be material of interest here to readers beyond this rather exclusive‐sounding grouping, including students and practitioners in all types of libraries.

The six chapters can be read independently. The first sets the overall scene, describing the power of print and prophecies of the death of the book. The second chapter discusses newsprint specifically, considering both newspaper publishing in the digital environment, and making digital copies of historic papers. The following chapter focuses on the cultural work of editing, which would have particular resonance for archivists interested in context/content relationships. Attention in the next chapter is on the new modes of publishing, in the online environment. The penultimate chapter deals with libraries, and returns to the digitisation themes first discussed in connection with newspapers. Finally, the book concludes with digital preservation concerns, so often omitted from any discussion of the brave new world of digital texts.

Extensive and wide‐ranging references are provided; the key arguments in debates that are taking place all around us relating to the future of print in the digital environment are summarised well. This is therefore a very valuable resource, and is highly recommended.