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<DIV>From <A
href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/5/183546/913">Kuro5hin</A>: Umberto
Eco, the widely celebrated academic and novelist, recently delivered a lecture,
<A href="http://www.ahram-eg.com/weekly/2003/665/bo3.htm">Vegetal and Mineral
Memory: The Future of Books</A>, at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, which
has been published in its entirety by Al-Ahram Weekly. <BR>Eco's lecture
concerns an array of questions surrounding the future of books in the age of
hypertext and digital media: Will hypertext and the internet eventually replace
the traditional book? Do the literary possibilities introduced by hypertext
spell the end of books and authors as we currently know them? <BR>Eco concedes
that, at least in the case of books which are designed to be consulted rather
than read -- dictionaries, encyclopaedias, reference manuals, and the like --
books are likely to disappear over time, as digital media offers numerous and
compelling advantages. <BR>In the case of books designed to be read rather than
consulted--novels, poems, essays, and the like -- Eco is rather more skeptical
about the eventual obsolescence of books as we know them; believing them to
"belong to those kinds of instruments that, once invented, have not been further
improved because they are already alright, such as the hammer, the knife, spoon
or scissors." <BR>Though Eco is one of my favorite authors, I definitely do not
agree with him on this point. It is true that today's e-books are not very
convenient to use compared to paper books, but this will change soon with better
technology. Today's scissors cut much better than last century's scissors. A
book remains a book regardless of the technology used to produce and use it. See
also <A href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=1594_0_5_0_C">this
post</A> of mine at <A href="http://www.alwayson-network.com/">Always On</A>.
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