I wanted to like e-books - I really did. I am always reading something, and the convenience of being able to download a book on the spot, for cheaper, and without having to find space on the shelf to put it on after, seemed great! But I just can't seem to get into a novel, even by one of my favourite authors, if it's presented on a screen.
I'm not sure how much of this is nostalgic, and how much of it is physiological and might be linked to how my eyes and brain absorb text (note: not a scientist). I read a lot as a child, and have great memories of curling up with books in various places, so nostalgia may certainly be a part of it. I also continue to enjoy spending hours in a book store browsing the shelves and reading excerpts. But on the other side, I continue to find it extremely difficult to read anything at all on a screen, from newspapers to journal articles. For school, if it is a text that I want to be able to remember anything about, at all, after reading it, I have to print it - all the highlighting and annotating functions available on the screen don't seen to help. I even have to print out my papers to proofread! For other materials, I have the same problems: for example, I find that when reading the news online, I get about 2 paragraphs in and then I just get frustrated, give up, and start to skim (this doesn't happen to me if I happen to have a physical paper, so I doubt it's a matter of not enjoying reading the daily news).
I realize that PDF articles and online journals are very different from eBooks, as was highlighted by Rowberry (2015). But the fact that I can't even seem to do actual work on a screen without either getting frustrated or feeling as though I entirely wasted my time (absorbing nothing at all) does not leave me much hope that I will ever be able to adapt to reading an ebook for pleasure, even if it is on a highly-adaptable ebook technology as opposed to the 'twitchy little screens' mentioned by Proulx (Maxwell, 2013).
Sources:
Maxwell, John W. (2013). E-Book Logic: We Can Do Better. "Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada" 51, no. 1, 29-47.
Simon Rowberry. (2015) Ebookness. "Convergence: the International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies"[pre-print; no vol/no assigned yet], 1-18.
Monday 29 February 2016
Friday 26 February 2016
Week 7: Print vs. Digital Reading
After reading this week's question, I was ready to write a whole bunch about how I don't like ebooks and I'll probably never buy an e-reader for pleasure reading. Then I read 's Simon Peter Rowberry's article "Ebookness" and realized I don't think I've ever actually read an e-book. Rowberry distinguishes e-books from digitized facsimiles such as PDFs and Google Books because of their inability to adapt. He writes of the flexibility of the e-book for optimized reading through its many layers, as the "ebook focuses on service infrastructure over the fidelity of the book as traditionally understood."(15) I have heard that companies like Marvel and DC are focusing on digital platforms for their readers so I do think that maybe graphic novels and comics on e-readers would be a cool reading experience because they're so visual, as well as an interesting topic of study. I also wonder how the dimension of flowability and adaptation that Rowberry describes - what changes would be made to sequential art or to text to make graphic novels into true e-books?
So I can now instead say that I don't like reading PDFs or scans on Google Books (despite their convenience) but I will still probably never buy an e-reader. I think I've already got all the screens I can handle.
I use digitized books and articles all the time for school, mostly because it saves time and paper and printer money! I hate doing it though. The screen is too bright, my contacts dry out, I get headaches, I don't pay attention long. Basically, I have terrible vision and I don't like focusing intently on a screen for too long. In addition to that, I'm stuck staring at a screen all day for work so I definitely associate reading digital books with work and school. Outside of digitized texts, I mostly just read short texts online (news articles, social media). Funnily enough, if I spend a few hours reading articles online I kind of feel like I wasted my time but if I spent the same amount of time reading a print book or flipping through a magazine, I feel productive. Screens still feel kind of like a constraint to me.
I usually have one or two print books on the go for pleasure reading. If I'm reading something that isn't portable, I'll pick out a smaller book and carry that with me for flights, waiting rooms, etc. I can read for longer, I don't lose my place or re-read lines, and I can write on or dog-ear pages I want to come back to. The best part is, I can read a print book in all my blind glory, without contact lenses or comically thick glasses! I can barely see my laptop screen without contacts and if I'm at the end of a 12 hour day, it really is not a pleasurable experience in any sense.
I also occasionally borrow digital audiobooks from the Toronto Public Library and listen to them on the subway or while I'm walking. Most of the time, I'm only passively engaged with this format so I don't think it's the best way for me to interact with a text but it's still entertaining.
Bibliography:
Simon Rowberry, "Ebookness," Convergence: the International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. July 1 2015. http://con.sagepub.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/content/early/2015/06/30/1354856515592509.full.pdf+html
So I can now instead say that I don't like reading PDFs or scans on Google Books (despite their convenience) but I will still probably never buy an e-reader. I think I've already got all the screens I can handle.
I use digitized books and articles all the time for school, mostly because it saves time and paper and printer money! I hate doing it though. The screen is too bright, my contacts dry out, I get headaches, I don't pay attention long. Basically, I have terrible vision and I don't like focusing intently on a screen for too long. In addition to that, I'm stuck staring at a screen all day for work so I definitely associate reading digital books with work and school. Outside of digitized texts, I mostly just read short texts online (news articles, social media). Funnily enough, if I spend a few hours reading articles online I kind of feel like I wasted my time but if I spent the same amount of time reading a print book or flipping through a magazine, I feel productive. Screens still feel kind of like a constraint to me.
I usually have one or two print books on the go for pleasure reading. If I'm reading something that isn't portable, I'll pick out a smaller book and carry that with me for flights, waiting rooms, etc. I can read for longer, I don't lose my place or re-read lines, and I can write on or dog-ear pages I want to come back to. The best part is, I can read a print book in all my blind glory, without contact lenses or comically thick glasses! I can barely see my laptop screen without contacts and if I'm at the end of a 12 hour day, it really is not a pleasurable experience in any sense.
I also occasionally borrow digital audiobooks from the Toronto Public Library and listen to them on the subway or while I'm walking. Most of the time, I'm only passively engaged with this format so I don't think it's the best way for me to interact with a text but it's still entertaining.
Bibliography:
Simon Rowberry, "Ebookness," Convergence: the International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. July 1 2015. http://con.sagepub.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/content/early/2015/06/30/1354856515592509.full.pdf+html
Week 6: "Enhanced" Music E-Books
Electronic music publishing continues to excite me. I came across a more seemingly sophisticated form of music ebook than the ones I have encountered in my earlier research.
Guitar.com praises Alfred Music Publishing by stating that they take "... music to a new level with the release of the world's very first Enhanced Music e-book in Apple's iBookstore" (Guitar.com, 2015). Upon reading the long list of features, as wells gazing upon the page above, the obvious question remained. How is this different from a website layout? There doesn't seem to be much left that is characteristic of and or resembling a traditional music book or "traditional" printed page. Later, I find out that Maxwell is reading my mail so to speak. He asks the same if not similar question:
"Despite
the electronic book’s existence as far back almost as the very dawn
of modern computing, the e-book now presents itself as brand new,
as the shape of things yet to come. What is different?" (Maxwell, 2013, p. 30).
I understand that we are trying to improve upon e-book page design, and that some of these additional features [i.e. "audio examples", "visual instructions", etc (Guitar.com, 2016)] are helpful to the consumer, but as far as design goes maybe simplicity and sophistication just haven't coalesced yet. Perhaps interactivity involves the marrying of the music scoresheet and notes and text there-in to sounds and leaving video out altogether. Maybe there should be page designs that can be made custom through settings that will help the consumer decide what kind of layout they would like to peruse through in their e-book. Either way, the "printed page" seems to be lost.
References
Guitar.com (2016). Alfred Introduces the World's First Enhanced Music E-Books...
Retrieved from https://www.guitar.com/articles/alfred-introduces-worlds-first- enhanced-music-e-books-alfreds-kids-guitar-course-now
Maxwell, J. W. (2013). "E-Book Logic: We Can Do Better". Papers of the
Bibliographical Society of Canada 51 (1), pp. 29-47. Retrieved
from http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/bsc/article/view/20761/16996
Perera, I. (2016). Alfred Enhanced Music E-Book. [Screen Capture].
Retrieved from https://www.guitar.com/articles/alfred-introduces-worlds-first- enhanced-music-e-books-alfreds-kids-guitar-course-now
Week 6: Editions at Play
Google and Visual Editions’ project Editions at Play
sells books “powered by the magic of the internet”. Publishing what have been
deemed “unprintable” books, I immediately thought of Editions at Play when I
read this week’s blog question. In particular, I want to take a look at Reif
Larsen’s Entrances & Exits.
So how has the magic of the internet worked its way into Entrances & Exits? By telling the
story using Google Street View. Editions at Play offers the following
introduction:
“Entrances & Exits by Reif
Larsen is a Borgesian love story told through Google Street View, in which the
narrator discovers a mysterious key in an abandoned bookshop and gradually
learns of its power to open and close doors around the world. The story is a
beautiful dance between fictional narrative real locations that seamlessly
spans the globe.”
Because I am a student I only read the free trial (which you can
access here: https://editionsatplay.withgoogle.com/#/detail/p_taCwAAQBAJ) ,
however, this was enough to get me thinking about how Entrances & Exits plays with the idea of the page.
One of the first things to jump out at me was that in the
description of the book, the publisher offers a “read time”, to let you know Entrances & Exits will take you
approximately one hour to read. One thing we might not think about when we
think about the page is that, not only is the page a finite container for text,
but it also acts as a marker of time. Andrew Piper touches on this change in Turning the Page when he highlights that
“If one of the crucial features of the page is its finitude ---that it
stops---then one of the first ways to think beyond the page is to transgress
its horizontal limits” (55) and focus instead on the “roamable text” (55).
Entrances
& Exits is a perfect embodiment of the roamable text. The book
encourages readers to navigate the physical space of the page, which is no
longer static, but a 360 degree view of a selected environment. When the space
of the page becomes roamable, the temporal structure of the reading experience
changes. There is no longer a finite number of words to take in, but a whole
visual environment that the reader must navigate to move forward in the text. By manipulating both the temporal and spatial elements of the page, Entrances & Exits is forced to adopt a new measure of expressing the time necessary to engage with the text.
Entrances
& Exits is also unique in that it combines the archetypal understanding
of the page, with this new exploratory environment powered by Google Street
View. The story isn’t told simply through Google Street View imagery with
minimal overlaid text, but through an oscillation between this and highly
structured print like pages of text.
What I find really intriguing about this structure is that on
the one hand, it is working extremely hard to reinvent the experience of the
page, while on the other, it requires the standardized conception of the page
to support this new innovation. Stoicheff
and Taylor echo this sentiment in their introduction to Future of the Page, writing that “Today digitization
has opened up endless possibilities for visual and acoustic innovation, but our
understanding of that constitutes a text remains rooted in the traditions of
the medieval page” (8). Below I've included two screenshots of different iterations of the page in Entrances & Exits:
If you look at the "standard" page, you will notice that it even employs grid lines to emphasize the structure of the page and delineate its strict borders.
There is a lot going on here, and I think that it really takes going through the book trial to fully understand the dichotomy of pages that Entrances & Exits presents. Indeed, there's so much going even beyond thinking solely about how Larsen's text uses the page.The book is currently on sale, so I'm considering purchasing it and maybe using it as the subject for my final essay. Let me know what you guys think!
References
Larsen, Rief. Entrances & Exits. Editions at Play, 2016. Access at https://editionsatplay.withgoogle.com/#/detail/p_taCwAAQBAJ
Piper, Andrew. "Turning the Page (Roaming, Zooming, Streaming)." In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Week 6: Star Touch
This week’s blog theme concerning the page
prompted me to think through the apps that I use on a regular basis that does
something interesting with the form of the page. I immediately thought of the
relative new Toronto Star iPad app,
“Star Touch.” The app offers a much more interactive approach to reading and viewing the news than many of the
news apps by mainstream newspapers. There is a “tactileness” to the app beyond
the conventional news apps. It appears less "static" than most digital pages from news apps. Indeed, it would appear that the app attempts to
bring back memories/the experience of flipping through an actual newspaper. The
“Star Touch” promotional material claims, “The News is New again. Bring a world
of information right to your fingertips. Touch, tap and swipe to discover rich
daily coverage, emerging stories and a fresh look at your favourite Star
features.” This being said, it doesn't mimic flipping through a newspaper. It offers a different experience.
 |
| Screenshot of the February 26 edition of Star Touch. |
Obviously, information at our “fingertips”
is nothing new. Rather, where the “Star Touch” differs from other newspaper
apps, is that a single page or news story often contains several features, or ways
to interact. Often superimposed over an image that takes up the entire screen,
there is the traditional news story, in text form, and often images to swipe
through, or a video to stream, or an interactive infographic to browse. For
more in-depth stories, there are subheadings leading to the various ways to
interact with the story.
 |
| Screenshot of the February 26 edition of Star Touch. |
In some ways, the app condenses information
that may appear on a full page in the actual newspaper (think of feature or
in-depth stories). How do people consume information that is found across a
full newspaper page? How do they consume the same information hidden in various
levels in the app? Are there huge cognitive differences that reveal or hidden
associations between the aspects (text, pictures, images, graphics, infographics)
of the news story? Piper argues that this sort of “zooming” “bursts through the
page’s two-dimensionality.” However, in having to perform zooming to access the
information “suggests a constant quest for the beneath”[1]
Piper suggests that “[p]athways allow us to do things over again, they are the
technologies of recurrence, perfectibility, and survival.”[2]
The disappearing nature of the digital paper—its “ephemerality”[3]—challenges
the digital pages ability to maintain what pathways ought to do. Is there too much lost in the quest for the beneath?
Week 6: What's in a Page?
This course has been very different from what I had originally expected and has caused me to think about books in an entirely different way. Previous to the start of this class, I will admit, I considered books in an almost singular way - the story or content itself is what I conceptualized as 'the book'. I guess that's why I never had such strong opinions against e-books: I don't particularly care what format the book is presented so long as the work itself was readable and wouldn't hurt too badly when I drop it on my face while trying to read laying down.
But as the course, and specifically the blogging questions, ask us to pull apart the parts of the book and think about them within different contexts, I have started to appreciate the complex nature regarding the idea of 'the future of the book'.
I own several devices that have the capability to read e-books. Out of all of my platforms to read e-books, the one I use with the most frequency is my Kindle. It's my oldest device, a gift from my sister, and I definitely know how to use it more than any of my other devices.
When considering this blogging question, I immediately thought about my Kindle device. I have an older generation Kindle so it's all operated using buttons rather than touch screen. Clicking on the forward or backward buttons on either side of the Kindle 'flips' the page. But it doesn't actually flip the page. It darkens the screen and opens up what would be considered the next 'page'. To me, this is interesting, especially even the phrasing I chose to describe the action. It doesn't make any declarations that it is a page itself, doesn't flip or act like a printed book, but that is how the user considers what is in front of them. There are no page numbers, and no design to make it look like a printed page. Even while reading e-books, I don't think about clicking the button as changing the page. But for some reason, that is how I chose to describe it here, even though I'm not actually flipping anything.
I have my desktop application synced with my Kindle device, so when I stop at a certain point on my Kindle, then open the book in the application, it will match where I stopped. But transferring the e-book from the Kindle to the Kindle application can be problematic, especially when thinking about the page. Because the difference in sizes, age of the application and device, and the viewing options available for both, what is presented on a page on the device is different from the text viewable on the application. Further, the application provides a 'location' for the reader within the book at the bottom. I thought these were like page numbers. But when I was clicking through I quickly noticed that the page numbers do not increase one at a time, but seven. This was very, very confusing. Is this an error on the application? Was it made during the creation of the e-book? But perhaps it is an interesting example of what can go wrong when considering digital pages of a book.
But what does it all mean, Basil?
Considering printed pages, digital pages, and the many great examples given by other blogging group members, I have come to question why we are trying to maintain and preserve the page. Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I'm not sure I see the merit in trying to preserve what we have traditionally conceptualized as the page. Understanding the historical, theoretical, and traditional position of the page is important for book history and bibliographers; however I think that the future of the book, and the development of e-books, demands a new way of understanding what we think is needed or necessary to fulfill out definition of 'book'. Should the idea of the 'page' make way for interface? Or should we keep the language frequently associated with the book to help conceptualize what we see?
I'm not sure. Hopefully the final few weeks of this course will help to clarify these questions.
But as the course, and specifically the blogging questions, ask us to pull apart the parts of the book and think about them within different contexts, I have started to appreciate the complex nature regarding the idea of 'the future of the book'.
I own several devices that have the capability to read e-books. Out of all of my platforms to read e-books, the one I use with the most frequency is my Kindle. It's my oldest device, a gift from my sister, and I definitely know how to use it more than any of my other devices.
 |
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll E-book on Kindle device. |
When considering this blogging question, I immediately thought about my Kindle device. I have an older generation Kindle so it's all operated using buttons rather than touch screen. Clicking on the forward or backward buttons on either side of the Kindle 'flips' the page. But it doesn't actually flip the page. It darkens the screen and opens up what would be considered the next 'page'. To me, this is interesting, especially even the phrasing I chose to describe the action. It doesn't make any declarations that it is a page itself, doesn't flip or act like a printed book, but that is how the user considers what is in front of them. There are no page numbers, and no design to make it look like a printed page. Even while reading e-books, I don't think about clicking the button as changing the page. But for some reason, that is how I chose to describe it here, even though I'm not actually flipping anything.
I have my desktop application synced with my Kindle device, so when I stop at a certain point on my Kindle, then open the book in the application, it will match where I stopped. But transferring the e-book from the Kindle to the Kindle application can be problematic, especially when thinking about the page. Because the difference in sizes, age of the application and device, and the viewing options available for both, what is presented on a page on the device is different from the text viewable on the application. Further, the application provides a 'location' for the reader within the book at the bottom. I thought these were like page numbers. But when I was clicking through I quickly noticed that the page numbers do not increase one at a time, but seven. This was very, very confusing. Is this an error on the application? Was it made during the creation of the e-book? But perhaps it is an interesting example of what can go wrong when considering digital pages of a book.
 |
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. E-book on Kindle Application on PC. Location indicated at the bottom of the page. |
Considering printed pages, digital pages, and the many great examples given by other blogging group members, I have come to question why we are trying to maintain and preserve the page. Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I'm not sure I see the merit in trying to preserve what we have traditionally conceptualized as the page. Understanding the historical, theoretical, and traditional position of the page is important for book history and bibliographers; however I think that the future of the book, and the development of e-books, demands a new way of understanding what we think is needed or necessary to fulfill out definition of 'book'. Should the idea of the 'page' make way for interface? Or should we keep the language frequently associated with the book to help conceptualize what we see?
I'm not sure. Hopefully the final few weeks of this course will help to clarify these questions.
Week 6: From Kindle to iBooks, what is a page?
In thinking about this week’s
question and trying to find a compelling example of an e-book that reinvents
the page, I experienced a block. It dawned on me that I actually don’t read
e-books very often, and I think this is mostly because I’ve never found one
that creates the same atmosphere or experience that a physical book does. I
decided to do some research and what I noticed was that e-books categorized as
interactive (containing photos, links, videos, animations) are those that are
considered exceptional. This resonated with me as I thought of Piper’s comment,
that these inclusions do not necessarily improve the page or the book itself,
but instead serve as distractions from the actual content, “a departure from,
not an enhancement of, reading” (Piper 2012, 48). Perhaps this is why I’ve
never felt a strong connection with e-books. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying
interactive apps and e-books are a bad thing! Clearly, I just need to
familiarize myself with more examples before I can really appreciate what they
do for the reader.
 |
| Kindle-Andy Weir's The Martian |
As it turns out, I have a decent
collection between iBooks and Kindle, though I’ve never actually read any of
them from front to back—or should I say from start to finish. The one e-book I
read this year was Andy Weir’s The
Martian. While I really enjoyed the story, the experience of reading it on
a Kindle felt somewhat detached and hollow. I don’t mean to sound sentimental,
and I do see the value and benefits of e-readers, but it simply didn’t do
anything for me. The page, as it appeared while reading The Martian, was not distinct or unlike any other digital
conceptualization of the page that I had seen before. There were basic blank
margins and a bit of white space. It could technically fit the parameters of
the “pages are windows” classification by the somewhat inherent or expected
qualities it featured (Piper 2012, 49). Needless to say, the enjoyment I
experienced from this first experience using a Kindle was because of the size
and portability of the reader itself and not the innovative page design,
aesthetic properties or functionality.
If we understand and expect that
a page will adopt the standard rectangular shape and vertical orientation, and
consider what Stoicheff and Taylor suggest about this qualities as related to
the shape and size of the human hand (Stoicheff and Taylor 2004, 5), then is a
page still a page if resembles anything else? After going through my
collection, I discovered a version of The
Night Before Christmas that I had downloaded for iBooks. Despite my earlier
scepticism, I found this e-book to be very compelling. When you first open the
book, the animation is designed to hover on the cover before fanning open to
the standard page spread where the left-hand page features standard information
about the book (title, author, artwork, copyright) and the right-hand page
discusses the inclusion of original artwork and information about Bookbyte
Digital, a self-publishing company. What strikes me about this book, aside from
the unique range of illustrations and photographs provided as a backdrop for
the text, is that it no longer represents “Pages are folds,” and instead adopts
the characteristics of a poster (Piper, 2012, p. 52). Instead of the gradual
unfolding of the book by flipping its pages, the reader seems to swipe through
a series of posters that tell the story. And it works. As a children’s book,
the intent of the pages, which are ultimately transformed into a series of
posters, provides an effective and enjoyable reading experience. While reading
this e-book doesn’t quite feel the same as reading a physical book, I don’t
believe that it diminishes the experience in any way due to the nature of the
story, the creativity and individuality behind each of the illustrations, and
its oblong orientation. I suppose it could be argued that this, then, is not a
page since there is no white space, no margins, no verticality, and no
rectangular shape. But does that make it any less “book” because it lacks that
particular set of features? No, I don’t believe it does.
 |
| The Night Before Christmas, iBooks--as it appears on the computer |
References:
Piper,
Andrew. "Turning the Page (Roaming, Zooming, Streaming)." In Book Was
There: Reading in Electronic Times. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Stoicheff,
Peter, and Andrew Taylor. Introduction to The Future of the Page. University of
Toronto Press, 2004. 3-25.
Thursday 25 February 2016
Week 6: An eBook/App/Interactive Experience
When
I read this week’s blogging prompt I immediately thought of a project I was
involved with during the last two semesters of my undergraduate degree and the
summer following. Two friends of a friend were working on a graphic novel,
using photographs rather than drawings for the graphics, and needed real people
to pose as the characters. I was cast as one of the characters and we shot the
first two chapters of The Weekend Wars, quite sporadically, over the next two years.
Originally, Ryan and Dylan, the creators, imagined a conventional graphic
novel form, a physical book with printed pages. As the project evolved they
realized it would be easier and less expensive to self-publish an eBook with
their considerable combined tech skills, and once they changed to an online
platform the possibilities for a graphic novel really opened up, and they
actually ended up creating an interactive app. The final product involves sound
and movement on each page or panel, from small touches within the story, like steam
rising out of a hot cup of coffee, to larger and more surprising movements barely contained onscreen, like a plane taking off across the screen,
sound included.
In their chapter from this week’s reading
list, Stoicheff and Taylor speak of aural acts and acts of looking as part of
reading, referring to these as part of reading’s “multimedial” quality (48),
and my example makes these acts much more explicit. Some pages or panels have
sound effects, as previously described, while others feature music, scoring a
scene like a movie, adding emotional cues. The app also brings in other media, like
messages that pop up looking and acting like text message bubbles in the middle
of the story, interrupting a character’s thought process and the reader’s
progress through the narrative just like the sudden distraction of an actual
text message. Graphic novels in their more static, print form can challenge the conception of reading and the page, making Stoicheff and Taylor’s “acts of
looking” even more explicit, and this example also brings movement into the equation.
While there is still a linear plot and
story, and even a forward swiping similar to turning pages, there is also the
idea that, in sudden movement and interactivity, the story is a little bit
unpredictable, and out of the reader’s hands. Indeed, Stoicheff and Taylor also
talk about this idea of a pathway in reading interfaces, an awareness of moving
through space (60), and one of the interesting aspects of my example is that
while some of the movement on the pages is within the narrative, like the
motion of driving, some takes the reader outside of the story and reminds them of
the eBook, like handwriting scrawled over images and text.
While The
Weekend Wars app is by no means perfect, and a few years out its creators themselves
have spoken of changes or regrets, it is an interesting prototype of the way
that eBooks might play with format and move away from the so-called
restrictions of the page, making the experience more multimedial while still
including elements of book-like narrative and navigation.
Week 6 - Ebook/App Hybrids
 |
| Our Choice, Al Gore (produce by Push Pop Press) http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/ |
 |
| Our Choice, Al Gore (produce by Push Pop Press) http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/ |
The fact that I liked reading this book so much on the screen, despite the fact that I typically don't enjoy that experience, made me wonder why. I think it comes down to the difference between this ebook and other ebooks - Our Choice often 'reads' more like a web page or a video game than a traditional book (despite the fact that you are still reading the text). Maybe, then, it is my attachment to the traditional way of reading books that makes me recoil at ebooks that try to mirror that experience - it seems too fake. But this ebook diverges far enough from 'book' that I am able to fully enjoy the experience. It preserve's Piper's 'pathways,' but allows readers to choose the depth and length of time that they spend on each section of that path. Want more information about that lecture from President Obama? Watch the whole thing, it's integrated into the text! Seen enough pictures of Tar Sands and don't feel like browsing any more? You don't even have to skip through them, just choose not to open them in the first place. The experience really is up to you.
If you have an iPhone/iPod/iPad, I highly recommend downloading Our Choice from the company's website - let me know what you think! I might have to go give it another look over now myself.
Sources
Push Pop Press: http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/
Piper, Andrew. "Turning the Page (Roaming, Zooming, Streaming)." In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Week 6: Ordinatio and Compilatio
This question (as with all questions) immediately made me think "but what if we look at medieval manuscripts??" Shocking, I know.
So today I am looking at the idea of the "Golden Ratio" of the page and whether we can apply it to webpages. Malcolm Parkes has discussed the concepts of ordinatio and compilatio in regards to the page, pointing out that the changes in medieval scholarship practices, i.e. commenting on Bible passages instead of just copying them out, fundamentally changed the way the page looked and functioned, leaving a large amount of space at the outer edge (away from the gutter) and at the bottom of the page for commentary.
At left is a page with the margins left clean, at right is one where they have been used for annotation:
This has in turn influenced what every page of the modern print book looks like--pull open a conventional book that you have near you--you'll see that it's the same. Our eyes are trained to find this layout very easy to read, and it allows the reader to insert themselves into the page--whether that be through annotation or illustration. Either way, this margin is left there to be USED. (And sorry, Ben and Laura, I still don't think that white space is oppressive--it's an opportunity and always has been!)
However, do websites have this golden ratio? Natasha talked earlier about how three column pages are very standard, and discussed the idea of headers and footers, but how about something even earlier? I'd argue that many pages follow this idea. Even this blogger interface has a right side margin for settings--see here:
That left-hand margin is separate from your text--it is for you, the creator, to fiddle with (even if it is post settings.)
I think that this is an old fashioned relic of the physical page though--as we are borrowing from the completely different medium of the Smart Phone OS and the app interface, webpages become more like scrapbooks than actual books--the margins disappear.
So what's my point in the end? I guess there is no golden ratio for webpages. I think, however, this reflection has shown me that web "pages" frequently seem derivative to me. I am not sure there's a web-native "Golden Ratio" that hasn't been adapted from the book or from the newer mobile OS technology.
So today I am looking at the idea of the "Golden Ratio" of the page and whether we can apply it to webpages. Malcolm Parkes has discussed the concepts of ordinatio and compilatio in regards to the page, pointing out that the changes in medieval scholarship practices, i.e. commenting on Bible passages instead of just copying them out, fundamentally changed the way the page looked and functioned, leaving a large amount of space at the outer edge (away from the gutter) and at the bottom of the page for commentary.
At left is a page with the margins left clean, at right is one where they have been used for annotation:
 | |
| Parisan Bible, on Vellum |
 |
| Boniface VIII, Liber sextus decretalium, with commentary of Johannes Andre, c.1325. |
This has in turn influenced what every page of the modern print book looks like--pull open a conventional book that you have near you--you'll see that it's the same. Our eyes are trained to find this layout very easy to read, and it allows the reader to insert themselves into the page--whether that be through annotation or illustration. Either way, this margin is left there to be USED. (And sorry, Ben and Laura, I still don't think that white space is oppressive--it's an opportunity and always has been!)
However, do websites have this golden ratio? Natasha talked earlier about how three column pages are very standard, and discussed the idea of headers and footers, but how about something even earlier? I'd argue that many pages follow this idea. Even this blogger interface has a right side margin for settings--see here:
 |
| This exact page, as I'm writing it. Meta, right? |
That left-hand margin is separate from your text--it is for you, the creator, to fiddle with (even if it is post settings.)
Older websites still have this margin as well: check out this screenshot from the Princeton Charette project--a functional, if not very pretty website--the white space is still there.
 |
| Princeton Charrette Project, available here. Kindly ignore my tabs, I captured them in order to give you a sense of scale for the white space, which looks very medieval to me! |
I think that this is an old fashioned relic of the physical page though--as we are borrowing from the completely different medium of the Smart Phone OS and the app interface, webpages become more like scrapbooks than actual books--the margins disappear.
This screenshot from Google Play Music (RIP, Spotify, you glorious thing) shows the "new" style of site:
 |
| WHERE ARE MY MARGINS? WHERE IS MY CREATIVE MEDIUM? PANIC! |
So what's my point in the end? I guess there is no golden ratio for webpages. I think, however, this reflection has shown me that web "pages" frequently seem derivative to me. I am not sure there's a web-native "Golden Ratio" that hasn't been adapted from the book or from the newer mobile OS technology.
I'll flip the question to you, fellow readers: is there a native webpage format? Is it Natasha's 3-column? Or is it something completely different?
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