Kathrin Hero

Books and digitization



The book’s place – a very old debate
Where is the book’s place in today’s hybrid information production? In a time when the book as a medium has repeatedly been declared dead my position as a book lover used to be a defensive one. I sought valuable and preferably measurable arguments that could explain the so called ‘charm’, ‘magic’ and ‘comfort’ of the traditional codex book, as mentioned by many bibliophiles and book collectors.

Throughout history the rhetorical concept of complete replacement often emerged when new technologies induced prophetic debates about the survival of old technologies and media. However, many theorists now agree that we are looking at a future where codex books and e-books will coexist and that the idea of the new replacing the old has to be dismissed as too simplistic.

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