Week 1 Study Guide Questions

Today I worked through all of the outside class work. I found it to be a little draining but none the less rewarding. I found the note taking to be a little bit drab but got through it making a thorough effort even though it’s not my cup of tea. I learnt about new ways to define a book through the readings that were posted up on the Art and Books Website, and I found these to be both very informing and quite interesting especially the article written by Phillip Smith.

Due to these articles I was able to change my own definition in order to suit all types of books. Also when reading the article by Phillip Smith I came across a new word that I found to be extremely interesting, ‘Bookness’. I find this word to be quite good for categorizing what a book actually is because it is a rather universal word that describes the aspects that make up a book rather than the contents that make up a book in order to define it.

When reading Edward Hutchin’s article I came across a quote that I really liked as well, and that I thought summed up the topic of “What is a book?” quite well. “Some people say that a scroll is a scroll and a book is a codex. I think it is more accurate to say that a scroll is a scroll, a codex is a codex and they both have a lot of bookness to them”

My new definition is as follows and I feel very satisfied by what I have come up with. “A book is an object that has the form and/or function of a book. For example a group of leaves with writing on them bound together by a piece of strong to form a connection. This has the form AND the function of a book. It has qualities of bookness.”

I feel like a accomplished something today and I am extremely glad that I followed up and did more research of the idea of what a book actually is.

Week 1 Introduction to Books

I really enjoyed the first class for this subject. Not only does it seem like an enjoyable class, I think that I will feel challenged by it. Can’t wait to see what next week has in store for us. This week we went over the general areas that needed to be covered in the introductory class, but also we had a look at a very interesting, yet simple question “What is a Book?” We were asked to define it in class and I didn’t struggle with this at all.

“A Book is a compilation of words and/or images that are used to educate or entertain. Usually a book is, but not necessarily constrained to a series of paper pages bound together to form some sort of sequences of events or imagery”

The debate that we had on the definition of a book was quite invigorating and it was interesting to learn about everyone else’s opinions on the topic. I also discovered that my definition did not cover the entirety of what a book actually is. I learnt that almost anything can be a book if it has the form and/or function of a book, it was very interesting to learn.