Roll to Codex to Kindle: Books and Libraries in the Age of Digitization
Lecture and conversation with James Reid-Cunningham,
from the Boston Athenaeum
Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 6:00pm ~ Free
at Portland Public Library Rines Auditorium
The future of books and libraries seems increasingly uncertain. During the last fifteen years, the digitization of cultural materials has become a central focus of research libraries such as the Boston Athenaeum, just as the popularity of e-readers and digital texts has led to endless speculation in the media about the death of the book as a format for communication. The transition from paper to pixels is the third major development in the physical form of the book, paralleling two earlier changes in book technology.
This historical survey of the nature of the book over two millennia will explore whether a zero-sum game now exists between digital technologies and paper books in codex form, and how research libraries will address these challenges in the years ahead.
All are welcome to this free lecture, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Mr Reid-Cunningham.
posted: , by Abraham