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Title: Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace by James Joseph O'Donnell ISBN: 067400194X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 05 May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4
Rating: 4
Summary: A Bracing Conversation on the Future!
Comment: J. J. O'Donnell is one those scholars whose learning is assumed rather than displayed. As a result, his brief approach to the long-terms effects of the computer revolution on reading and higher education feels like a bracing, sophisticated exchange of ideas. Like conversation, O'Donnell's thesis is not terribly unified or orderly. He often makes sidetracks from his focus on high technology and literacy into explaining such interesting things as how we choose our cultural ancestry instead of merely evolving out of it, the errors of current education, and perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about other avatars of the word such as St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Cassiodorus. Great cover too.
O'Donnell is uniquely suited to write such a book and to indulge in such digressions. He is Professor of Classical Studies but also Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing at the University of Pennsylvania. His purpose is to compare the transformation already begun within the electronic medium to earlier transformations such as those from oral to written culture in ancient Greece, the papyrus scroll to the codex manuscript, and the codex to the printed book. ... O'Donnell proclaims that interactive 'hypertext' was the original form of written communication. In fact, the book as a form of authorized mass communication has allowed individual and community freedoms to dissolve and centralized authority to legitimize itself. 'Control over texts had brought control over people' (p. 37). Books will never disappear entirely, he prophesies, because of the public's love for a good, self-contained, often fictional narrative. Scholarly tomes, however, will lose their influence and the libraries which contain them will have to radically adapt: 'In a world in which the library will cease to be a warehouse and become instead a software system, the value of the institution will lie in the sophistication, versatility, and power of its indexing and searching capacities' (p. 61).
The greatest change in store, then, will be in the manner in which scholarly research is undertaken and written up. 'The traditional monograph, with its sustained linear argument, its extraordinarily high costs of publication and distribution, and its numerous inefficiencies of access, is beginning to look more and more like a great lumbering dinosaur' (p. 58). No single point of view will do in our electronic postmodern utopia. The author must die and so must the enclosure of singular line of argument and conclusions declared by one mind to which all the world is expected to accede. 'Instead of publication that says "This is how it is," we have a form of public performance of scholarship that asks "What if it were this way?" Publication of this sort becomes a form of continuing seminar, and the performance is interactive, dialogic, and self-correcting' (p. 136).The next generation of scholars - who will have learned 'disorientation' of their assumptions, according to O'Donnell - may be the ones to actually listen to and learn from each other.
The question of consciousness is only hinted at but O'Donnell's stance here falls somewhat short of postmodern. Though he understands the way we remember is largely determined by our culture and communication system, he still accepts human nature, that is, human consciousness, as essentially stable and guided by the simple - and singular - motivations which drove our ancestors: 'Technology will do what it always does: provide tools. Those tools may eventually shape their owners, but they are always assuredly instruments with which their owners may pursue their own aims' (p. 148). It may be that in an electronically communal, de-authored culture, individual memory will lose its egocentric center (which others have understood as the postmodern condition). In this scenario, individual identity may either become fragmented or become, as Ricoeur suggested, mutualized as 'oneself as another'. If this is the case, then writing, codices, books, and the computer may do more than act as tools. They may instead have altered and be continuing to alter the nature of our self-awareness - human consciousness itself.
Rating: 5
Summary: Original, Well-Conceived and Well-Produced
Comment: This book I found very enjoyable. It connects the past and the present in a sensible and imaginative way. The dream of the virtual library is an ancient one, the author tells us. O'Donnell is knowledgeable about world history and about his particular Irish heritage. I enjoyed reading the chapter for academics very much. I think that many peopel will find this book engrossing and educational. Bravo O'Donell!
Rating: 2
Summary: Interesting ideas in a mixed-up presentation
Comment: There are without a doubt some brilliant ideas in this book. However, reading the book is a bit like mining for precious ore, you have to go through a lot of uninteresting rocks to get to the good stuff.
It would appear that the author had some serious ideas he wanted to publish and chose book format as conventional and lucrative. However, the book is a mish-mash of ideas that don't necessarily string together to form anything like a cohesive argument or narrative. While this non-linear presentation works well in cyberspace, it is a frustrating thing to deal with in book format.
It is heartening that a classics professor would tackle a subject like the change from print to electronic technology. His comparisons between the coming of the Internet and the rise of the codex in late antiquity are interesting. He clearly "gets" the Internet and doesn't consider it the big bad book-slayer.
The author sprinkles in some of his theories on education, particularly post-secondary. He poses interesting questions but provides no answers to those questions about the purpose of post-secondary education in the modern world.
Some of the ideas presented were compelling, the style of the book was difficult to handle, and his final comparisons between himself and Cassiodorus were a bit much. I could only give it two stars.
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Title: The Evolution of the Book by Frederick G. Kilgour ISBN: 0195118596 Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr on Demand Pub. Date: March, 1998 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution by Michael E. Hobart, Zachary S. Schiffman ISBN: 0801864127 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The History and Power of Writing by Henri Jean Martin, Lydia G. Cochrane ISBN: 0226508366 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: The Story of Libraries by Fred Lerner ISBN: 0826413250 Publisher: Continuum Pub Group Pub. Date: 15 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice (Information Literacy Sourcebooks) by Esther S. Grassian, Joan R. Kaplowitz ISBN: 1555704069 Publisher: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
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