Week 12 Books in the Digital Era

This week I started on the last topic, Books in the Digital Era. I feel going into this topic that I am a little sad that this semester is coming to a close. But I also feel like this last topic is going to be quite easy and fun considering that everyone in the class has an adept knowledge of computers and the internet, and has had experience with the Digital book.

Before I get too in depth with this topic I will first define what ‘Hypertext’ is:

Hypertext refers to a method of storing data through a computer program that allows a user to create and link fields of information at will and to retrieve the data nonsequentially.

Some of the issues that were addressed in this topic were quite fascinating. I look at the questions about the digital Artsits’ books and they really intrigue me. One in particular “should such works be regarded as art?” (in regards to digital artists’ books). I believe that if it has the form and/or the function of a book it should be considered a book. So, in fact the digital artists’ books can, and more often than not, are considered to be books even though they only exist as binary code in their simplest form.

There was an interesting question that we were asked to address for this topic in regards to the existence of the digital book. The question was “Will the physical book continue to exist into the future?” The answer that I gave for this question is as follows:

Even though the digital book is a growing epidemic, and that technology is far exceeding tradition there will still be people that will choose to both create and still read the traditional book. So yes they will still exist. However, they may become obsolete. To put it into an analogy. The physical book will become like the very first computer. It still exists however there are only few that still use it. We can not safely assume that the physical book would become extinct due to the vast history and impact that it has had. I think that the physical book has had too much of an impact on our lives in general to be taken over by the digital world.

This topic, although short was fun. Although I didn’t really gain much from it because I already know quite a bit of information about the digital era and digital books.