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January 18, 2009
The Fragility of Permanence
I’ve been thinking about the following paragraph from A Universal History of the Destruction of Books by Fernando Baéz:
The book is an institution of memory for consecration and permanence, and for that reason should be studied as a key element in society’s cultural patrimony. In itself, patrimony has the ability to stir a transmissible feeling of affirmation and belonging. It can reinforce or stimulate a people’s awareness of identity in their territory. A library, an archive, or a museum are cultural patrimonies and all nations regard them as temples of memory.
Setting aside the question of whether “patrimony” is an acceptable term any longer (and the number agreement problems—I blame the translator), there is something significant to ponder here.
And it seems particularly important this week in light of a 21st century president’s taking the oath of office on the inaugural Bible of a 19th century president.
What we’re all addressing in bookworld is a (perhaps to some extent generational) difference of faith: faith that in substituting digital files for printed and bound texts, we will be able to maintain and perhaps even enhance the permanence of cultural and intellectual records. But will we be? To some, in a world where websites are taken down, links fail or disappear, posts are withdrawn, and online services go under, a world of destructive viruses, the opposite seems fully feasible.
To so many (perhaps younger) users of portable, social technologies, it seems like old-think to associate the concept of permanence with physicality. Libraries, after all, can be burned bombed sacked destroyed. That’s what Baez’s book is about. As Donald Rumsfeld said on the pillaging of The National Museum of Iraq: “Stuff happens.” Which is to say that governments, particularly aggressor governments, don’t prevent that from happening; all too often they promote it.
And in that endless world, perhaps we should consider why universal digital dissemination (and multiplication) of texts is to some people not reassuring. I mean consider beyond just pigeonholing such worriers as luddites. (By the way, I think Luddism has been misunderstood—but that's another topic.)
I'm just asking: Are we certain that digitized texts are set not only to open but to increase the continuity of evolving cultures? Maybe so, but still it may be a legitimate question to pose repeatedly—if for no other reason than to ensure that our outcomes protect not only the inclusiveness but also the continuity of ideas and of histories.
(The multiplication of copies also raises the question of authoritative texts and our ability to get back there—which is to say that it’s not difficult to conjure images of the viral proliferation and compounding of transcriptive, cut-and-paste, and contextual errors. But I think that, too, is another subject.)
Certainly the most vocal resistance to anything that separates text from a physical existence is based on such a thing being a direct assault on a proven business model: The selling of countable goods. But that doesn’t explain the resistance many folks who live with books exhibit to separating the story from the thing. We forget that perhaps widespread reluctance sometimes—especially in our online conversations, where what we're concerned with the most is platforms and importability.
Folks who are more comfortable viewing reading as an act of consumption (like watching television) might suffer little worry about permanence in the context of books. And maybe those who do worry with maintaining written art and record as elements in a perpetual cultural bequest will be reassured only when it comes clear that the individual digitized text, and the ideas within it, can be a permanent presence in the world.
And in this context, by “permanent” I mean that which can repeatedly and readily be lifted up, referred to, interpreted, and passed on to others who might pass it on in turn.
More later.
N.B. I’m not in the habit of identifying the references I intend in the headings for some of these posts. But today, I'd like to do so
Posted in: Publishers Blog, | Keywords: publishers blog
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Comments
Fred,
I find it interesting that you should write about this subject. Having made my living in the computer industry, I have often thought about the same thing. And as such, I know I should be a proponent of technology.
Digital media is ethereal at best. Obviously, the speed at which the proliferation of an idea can be shared and the volume of those individuals on the receiving end is unparalled. But, it relies on the existence of properly functioning hardware and electricity; two things with tenuous ties to longevity. If the ideas put forth in any written work are to survive with any permanence, they need to be in printed and hardback form.
Warren Austin
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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 01/18 08:58 PM