The Penguin Blog posted an interesting little entry about eBooks and electronic publishing. To quote part of the post:
“There is a school of thought that says that Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press – leading to the demise of the illuminated manuscript and the transfer of knowledge by linear type – actually affected the way that people absorbed ideas and information and that Western Rationalism might not have taken hold without the orderly presentation of text. So it is not implausible to imagine that as more and more knowledge and information is transfered via the internet, with popup windows, embedded video, infographic boxes and all the other eye-catching frippery competing for attention, we might witness significant changes in the way we read, and perhaps in the way we actually think.” ~from Nonlinearity by Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher
The rest can be read here: http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2008/02/non-linear.html
If the printed word ushered in an era of Western Rationalism, what might we be ushering in with the advent of electronic words? Any thoughts?
Modern Irrationalism? After all, any crank with an agenda can publish an eBook nowadays and market it.
(I say this, checking the latest sales numbers on The Milkman eBook version…)
Ian