The Digital Revolution: Catalyst for Transformation or Merely New Wine in Old Wineskins?

 

In "Postprint: Books and Becoming Computational," N. Katherine Hayles delves into the transformative impact of computer technology on literacy, authorship, and human identity through what she terms the postprint condition. This period reflects an era where the lines between print and digital technologies blur, fundamentally altering our interaction with written language and books.

The dramatic evolution that took place from 1950 to 2000 did more than just change how books are produced; it revolutionized the very fabric of publishing, akin to a seismic shift rather than just a series of small tremors. While earlier innovations like lithography and rotary presses introduced significant changes to printing, they affected only aspects of the broader print paradigm. In contrast, the advent of computational technologies during the latter half of the 20th century marked a profound departure from traditional methods, redefining the production and consumption of texts on a global scale.

A key feature of this postprint era is the way digital technology decouples text from its traditional physical medium. As noted by book artist and theorist Amaranth Borsuk, texts in their digital form are liberated from any single material form, adaptable across diverse digital platforms—from computers and smartphones to tablets and e-readers. This flexibility influences how texts are accessed, read, and interpreted, making digital texts vastly more malleable and accessible than their printed counterparts.

This shift to digital is not merely a change in how texts are delivered; it represents a fundamental rethinking of what constitutes a book. In the postprint world, the printed book is no longer the definitive format for text. Instead, it becomes just one output option among many, with digital formats offering dynamic alternatives that can be tailored to various reading preferences and situations.

ISBN: The First Digitization of Publishing

Publishers have been integrating digital processes for several decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, typesetters began using computers and early software, precursors to today's text markup languages, to compose books, effectively reducing costs for publishers. By the mid-1980s, the advent of desktop publishing and the development of word-processing programs provided significant assistance to authors, typesetters, and publishers by streamlining the creation of printed books. However, during this period, publishers generally did not retain the typeset files of their books, as there was no market for electronic book sales. This trend continued such that even into the early 2000s, most major consumer publishers did not maintain digital copies of their books.

The clearest example of how digital technologies affect contemporary book production comes not from publishers but in the history and implementation of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN). In 1932, a report by O. H. Cheney pinpointed the lack of standardized distribution mechanisms as a critical bottleneck hindering the growth of the book industry. This insight underscored the significance of efficient back-office operations across the trade. The proposed solution was to create standardized numbers that would uniquely identify each book.

By 1980, ISBNs had become so integral to the industry that the International ISBN Agency reached out to the European Article Number (EAN) International to merge the two systems. This merger aimed to accommodate differences in currency and national standards, introducing a country-specific prefix to the ISBN. The inventive solution was to create the fictional country of "Bookland," represented by the prefix 978. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the U.S. book industry universally adopted the Bookland EAN barcode for all books sold in bookstores.

This adoption coincided with the technological shift from mainframe computers to desktop computers, significantly enhancing computational capabilities across bookstores and distribution networks. This period marked a transformative phase in the book industry, linking digital advances directly to operational improvements in book sales and distribution.

The integration of ISBNs into computer databases using digital optical readers during the 1980s significantly enhanced their functionality. This technological advancement allowed ISBNs to be linked with additional book-related information, streamlining distribution, warehousing, inventory management, shelving, and sales tracking. This development underscores the critical role of back-office operations in the structure of the book industry. The adoption of digital processes within these operations had profound impacts, transforming daily practices. These changes influenced not only how books are mass-marketed but also how they are produced, edited, formatted, stored, sold, and ultimately, read.

The Five Great Technological Advances

Discussing the impact of computation on printing technologies can only ever provide a partial view; the complete narrative is far too expansive for a single chapter, book, or even a series of volumes. Nevertheless, N. Katherine Hayles highlights five pivotal technological shifts that led to the digital revolution in publishing.

The first major shift involved the transition from manual to mechanized cognition with the introduction of the Paige Compositor by James Paige in the late 19th century. Although this machine was a commercial failure and caused financial ruin for Mark Twain, it marked a significant conceptual shift in print production—from a predominantly human-operated craft to a hybrid human-machine operation.

The second shift involved the move from physical materials (atoms) to light (photons), exemplified by the creation of the Lumitype phototypesetter in the mid-20th century. This innovation spurred decades of technological advancement, culminating in market saturation by the mid-1980s.

The third shift saw the development of coherent fiber optic bundles, enabling the digitization of light flashes from phototypesetters, making them addressable by computers. Introduced in the early 1970s, the Computer Assisted Typesetter (C/A/T) by Graphic Systems Inc. paved the way for the eventual dominance of fully computerized printing systems like laser printers. While the C/A/T’s direct impact on printing was limited, its use of fiber optics played a crucial role in the broader explosion of electronic data transmission, influencing the development of the internet.

The fourth technological node emerged when reprographic technologies merged with desktop publishing, leading to the creation of print-on-demand capabilities. This transformation began with the launch of Xerox’s DocuTech in the early 1990s, enhancing machine cognition and altering the interaction between human and machine intelligence in the production process.

The fifth and most recent development has been the rise of e-books and e-readers in the 21st century, visibly demonstrating the changes in print book production to the wider public. This shift has profound implications for the act of reading itself, affecting legal, social, and neurological aspects of how content is consumed. By the late 2010s, according to Hayles, the transition from traditional print to a postprint world had largely been realized, marking a century-long evolution in how we produce and interact with text.

Leah Rice: Counterpoint

Leah Rice offers a counterpoint to N. Katherine Hayles' view that digitization represents a fundamental shift in media, arguing instead that printed books have consistently been at the forefront of technological and cultural innovation. Initially, following the invention of movable type, printed books emerged as the first standardized products. Unlike late-medieval manuscripts, which varied with each copy, printed books provided a uniformity that was revolutionary for the time. This standardization enabled books to be branded and marketed in ways previously unseen, setting the stage for modern marketing practices that would later include everything from patent medicines to diverse consumer goods.

Historian Ted Striphas illustrates that by the nineteenth century, books pioneered new commercial practices: they were among the first consumer goods marketed specifically as gifts and sold on consumer credit. This trend facilitated the rise of a credit economy, which expanded to include various consumer items from clothes on layaway to subprime home mortgages. Furthermore, bookstores innovated retail by introducing browsable, self-service shelves—a stark departure from the traditional behind-the-counter display method.

In the mid-20th century, Barnes and Noble was among the first to utilize background music in stores and later became one of the first retail chains to advertise on national television. Publishing entrepreneur Richard Nash asserts that books were not reluctantly dragged into capitalist practices; rather, they were integral to the development of consumer capitalism from its inception.

Print also led innovations in inventory management and packaging; it influenced the adoption of paper packaging and printed labeling, and books were the first products to feature barcodes. These advances in inventory control systems set the stage for modern e-commerce. Notably, when Jeff Bezos was looking for a product to test his new online sales platform, he chose books because of their long-standing role in technological forefronts.

Overall, the history of print is one of constant evolution, shaped by and shaping the media landscapes around it. Far from being static until the advent of digital technologies, printed books have historically been dynamic, influencing and adapting to new forms and prompting diverse consumer behaviors through each phase of their existence.

Who is right?

From its inception, as Leah Price suggests, print has evolved in tandem with surrounding media. Even within a single historical moment, printed books have taken various forms and influenced behaviors differently. Does this mean Kayle is overstating the impact of the digital revolution?

Not necessarily.

Comparing a print book from the 1950s to one today reveals the extensive changes driven by digital technology. Key differences include enhanced accessibility, greater speed, and improved interoperability. Collectively, these developments are catalyzing profound changes in how we interact with printed material.

Accessibility: In 1950, obtaining a print book could take weeks, involving warehouses, bookstores, libraries, or direct orders via mail and phone. Once a print run sold out, additional waiting was required for reprints or library loans. Today, nearly all new books are instantly accessible as e-books, with most older titles available online. Print copies can be quickly purchased on demand and delivered within two days using expedited shipping.

Speed: Previously, reviews of print books might not appear until a year after publication. Now, blog entries can be posted immediately once a text is online, and networked books may receive peer reviews and commentary even during the writing process. Communication with authors has also accelerated; readers can send emails, leave comments, ratings, and reviews on platforms like Goodreads and Amazon, and share links to videos on YouTube or Vimeo all on the day of release.

Interconnections and Interoperability: Platforms like Manifold can rapidly process text and graphics in seconds, and video and sound clips in minutes, marking a stark contrast to the isolated nature of print books. Networked books are designed not only to link with a wide range of media materials but also to interconnect with other books within the same platform.

In today’s digital age, unlike the standalone print books of the 1950s, networked books serve not merely as supports for cognition but as active participants in cognitive processes. The world's tasks are increasingly handled by cognitive assemblages—complex networks of human and technical systems where information, interpretations, and meanings are exchanged continuously. The software platforms underlying networked books are prime examples of these assemblages. They manage and correlate information, execute search functions, interpret data from various texts, manage workflows, and link to other texts and digital objects within expansive databases. This transformation embodies the "postprint" era, characterized by enhanced speed, accessibility, interoperability, and the integration of software as a collaborative partner.

Conclusion

Many readers may view e-readers simply as convenient tools for accessing print content, perceiving little difference in engaging with digital texts as opposed to traditional print media. However, understanding the interaction between a user and an e-reader necessitates a model of distributed cognition and, inherently, an appreciation of the user and e-book interaction as an example of distributed agency.

E-readers, with their cognitive capabilities, introduce users to a distinctly different media ecology than that of print books. Unlike print books, which primarily serve as cognitive supports, e-readers act as active cognizers—effectively becoming collaborators in the reading process. They are capable of sensing and responding to the reader’s inputs, executing complex commands, and facilitating a more dynamic interaction with the text.

This capability places e-readers within broader cognitive assemblages characteristic of postprint technologies. These devices do more than just display text; they engage with users, adapting and reacting in ways that transform reading into an interactive and personalized experience. This shift underscores a profound change in how information is processed and understood, moving from passive consumption to active engagement, where the technology itself becomes a vital participant in the act of reading.