Recently, I enrolled for a course, Understanding Media by Understanding Google on Coursera andmy first assignment was to put up a write up. less than 350 words, explaining whether the digitization of books is good or bad. This is what I thought:
The golden age of books “…was slow to take shape, suddenly glorious...”[1] but certainly not over. Perhaps the age of glamorous bookstores and museum-sized commercial libraries – built on rigid capitalist business models – is but, “quickly over”[2]. [What happened was that] the nature of the product expanded.”[3] This paradigm shift, has not just affected news, or newspapers or books. It has affected everything. Digital media explosion is changing the panorama and how we do things.
Thing is, the rules have changed. Today, “customers are in charge”[4]. People are eager to delve in to the new world of advanced technology, and their needs are increasing by the day. Digitizing books by google is good, because this means that a book sat in a New York or Milano Library but relevant for a researcher in Colombo, can now be available for rent or purchase within minutes. Thus, “instead of an economy based on scarcity, today’s is based on abundance”[5].
It is however, bad for Unions (who are said to 'dig holes' in the pocket of authors unnecessarily) and large bookstores – which have initially caused a dry up of local ‘indie’ libraries – as this affects their business models. With advanced technology and the interconnectivity that it affords, “people can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you or against you”[6]. And it is these people whom it has coalesced against, that Eric Thomas was referring to, when he said, “We’ve never been able to see what the Internet adds, we can only see what it subtracts”[7]. “It’s [perhaps then] tragic that the Internet hasn’t destroyed our tendency to paint with such a broad brush”[8].
The golden age of books “…was slow to take shape, suddenly glorious...”[1] but certainly not over. Perhaps the age of glamorous bookstores and museum-sized commercial libraries – built on rigid capitalist business models – is but, “quickly over”[2]. [What happened was that] the nature of the product expanded.”[3] This paradigm shift, has not just affected news, or newspapers or books. It has affected everything. Digital media explosion is changing the panorama and how we do things.
Thing is, the rules have changed. Today, “customers are in charge”[4]. People are eager to delve in to the new world of advanced technology, and their needs are increasing by the day. Digitizing books by google is good, because this means that a book sat in a New York or Milano Library but relevant for a researcher in Colombo, can now be available for rent or purchase within minutes. Thus, “instead of an economy based on scarcity, today’s is based on abundance”[5].
It is however, bad for Unions (who are said to 'dig holes' in the pocket of authors unnecessarily) and large bookstores – which have initially caused a dry up of local ‘indie’ libraries – as this affects their business models. With advanced technology and the interconnectivity that it affords, “people can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you or against you”[6]. And it is these people whom it has coalesced against, that Eric Thomas was referring to, when he said, “We’ve never been able to see what the Internet adds, we can only see what it subtracts”[7]. “It’s [perhaps then] tragic that the Internet hasn’t destroyed our tendency to paint with such a broad brush”[8].
[1] Warsh,
D. "The Golden Age of Newspapers: A Short History," 8/12/2013, http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2013.08.12/1528.html
[2]
Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
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