Last week, I attended an event jointly organized by Knowledge Workers Toronto and the SLA Toronto Chapter called Dealing with Information Overload. The presenter, Karl Dawson of phiScape AG, has proposed a solution to information overload using software. The application he presented is still in the early stages but I gather that it is intended to automatically generate two types of results: summaries and indexes. I think the concept of it is that the software essentially takes a first pass at reading the text and then gives the actual human reader less to go through. I can see some potential for this kind of approach in terms of improving reader productivity.
The potential benefit of this system goes something like this.: if you could read fifty news article in an hour, maybe I could read a hundred news summaries in less time. I should reserve judgement on this approach but I’ve seen things like this before and have not found them that helpful. If you read a series of 10-50 news summaries on events around the world, how informed do you feel? It is the difference between reading the International Herald Tribune and reading the actual New York Times and Washington Post. You can cover more ground in a sense but I wonder if you get more out of it. Still, the presenter made the point that most popular reading innovations lately – such as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader – are basically aiming to replicate the experience of reading a print book in digital form. This reminds me of the early decades after printing came to Europe; some people thought that manuscript books were far superior and some printers responded by trying to make printed books look like manuscripts (or having scribes add finishing touches to a printed book). In hindsight, that was just a sign of a transition from one technology to another.
Can you think of any technologies or tools available that actually improve on the reading experience? Make it more pleasant? Or perhaps more productive? I will happily agree that the invention of hypertext (and XML) in the 1990s was a big leap forward, but what else is happening in the reading technology world?
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There have been numerous articles written in the past few years predicting the rise of the e-reader and its eventual replacement of the book. I believe that e-readers will continue to be a niche product because they cannot fulfill all the functions of a printed book. Books are read in a diverse range of environments and I can’t imagine anyone taking an e-reader to the three Bs – beach, bed and bath. Also, books have a certain aesthetic appeal – I know I enjoy having bookshelves laden with an attractive range of books. There are also technological issues – nobody wants to risk their library becoming obsolete if there is a change in technological fashion. (The way that VHS superseded Betamax in the 1980s, for example). The interesting this is that the most significant effect of the transition from manuscript to print – making books more accessible in a wide range of circumstances – may preclude the widespread popularity of the e-reader as it cannot fufill all the functions expected of a printed book.
I love the idea of the three Bs as you describe it – I can just imagine an ebook maker trying to figure out a way to overcome that.
In the demonstration session I went to, the focus appeared to be on what I would call short form reading (e.g. news articles in the 500-1500 word range and shorter academic articles). Informally, I have seen this to be a trend; many people will happily read a news article online but if you ask them to read a 5,000 word article or longer, many many people will prefer to print it. The digital reading experience just isn’t as comfortable for long periods.
Yes, I definitely read news articles online so that I can have a look at a wide range of newspapers but I tend to print academic articles. It is not just a matter of length but of density of content. The internet often lends itself to skimming in a way that paper content does not. This is really interesting topic – if you hear anything about how e-book readers are trying to address the 3Bs, do write about it!