Chapter 5. The Digital Spirit: Digital Libraries and Democracy
5.5. Technical supports and new ways of reading
New media apparently leads to new ways of reading and writing texts. These new practices taking place before us are part of a cultural revolution. Apart from traditional forms of reading and writing, a new way of thinking is currently developing. This new type of culture that is sometimes expressed in a very militant or even prophetic way can be defined as the digital spirit. Those who advocate this new trend are convinced that digital technology will change the modes of
Digital Libraries and Democracy 67 distribution and access to knowledge and culture in the education of children as well as in the field of further training for adults. Society will undergo a revolution and progressively transform into an “information society”.
Which practices can currently already be observed? In what way, compared to the traditional culture of printed documents, do they represent a new and different relationship with knowledge and culture?
Printed texts impose a uniform and unique way of approaching a text: they must be read in a linear fashion. The reader therefore remains rather passive when reading a printed text. Reading a book has always consisted of following the discourse from the beginning to the end by turning every page and reading the entire text from the first page to the last. Is this true or is this image a strong reduction of reading capacities that corresponds to inexperienced and rather clumsy readers? In reality, there are many different forms of reading and all of them find a suitable form of physical representation in the traditional art of printing.
Nothing stops the reader approaching a book in different ways, choosing their own rhythm as well as reading only certain parts of the text. A dynamic reading process of a text slows down during difficult passages and speeds up when the text becomes easier. Experienced readers who no longer have difficulties with decoding the individual letters, anticipate the direction the text will take, i.e. what idea will come next. Just like the philosopher Alain, we may advocate the pluralized form of reading that is adapted to the specific type of text and its language. The reading process is either fast or slow, superficial or concentrated. The reader follows the author’s thoughts without being a slave to them [ALA 86]. From the 1960s onwards, methods of an active and also fast reading process were analyzed in the fields of physiological and cognitive processes [RIC 86].
On the other hand, the editing process consists of a number of specific tools that allow for orientation when reading. These tools have constantly been improved throughout history. Tables of content, abstracts, indexes, footnotes, pagination and concordances are just some of the features that help the reader when approaching a text. What Genette refers to as a “paratext” is made up of parts of the text that are separate from the main body. The paratext shows the plurality of a text and indicates its usage. Printed texts therefore are not as rigid as the advocates of digital technology would have society believe. Vandendorpe put the idea of linear reading processes into perspective by emphasizing new aspects of tabulation. “Written texts allow us to escape linearity under the form of a codex that enables us to explore the sophistication of space. A book is enriched by several elements of tabulation”
[VAN 99].
68 Digital Libraries
If printed written texts are just as well structured on a synchronic level as well as on a diachronic level, what are the new possibilities opened up by the digitization of texts? Every line of characters can potentially be accessed directly. The reader does not need to look for this line of characters. There are multiple ways to enter, access and exploit a text. A large field of linguistics that includes style, semantics or syntactical aspects is now open for analysis. During the era of printed texts, this process would haven taken a very long time. Possibilities of objectivity enable the researcher to move away from the level of intuitions they never strayed from previously. An increase in IT tools will open up new possibilities for analysis that have never been seen before in the fields of literature and other texts.
Furthermore, digitization allows for the modification of texts. Each digital text can not only be accessed and exploited, but can also be quoted, analyzed, cut, reconstructed and a concatenation ad libitum with any other text can be carried out.
Readers can integrate their own texts into those of other authors and vice versa.
Reading and writing processes are becoming increasingly linked to each other and will eventually merge into one process, which means that readers will finally discover that their status has improved and they have ipso facto joined the league of authors2.
The essential novelty of digitization consists of the infinite mastery of texts. The reading process of a printed text is necessarily subdivided into two phases. In the first part of the reading process, notes are taken or observations are made on the text.
During the second part, the actual writing process, quotes and observations from the text are integrated into a new text. These quotes and observations underline the intention of the reader who has taken on his/her position as an author. Digitization offers new possibilities that make the composition of a text and the integration of other texts much easier. The two different levels of reading mentioned above are therefore merged into one. Traditional operations undergo further progress and are merged during the text production process. In its most sophisticated form, this process has given birth to a project known as computer-assisted reading. This project caused much controversy but was never actually realized [STI 91,VIR 93, ZYS 99].
However, new forms of reading and writing will not only develop because the technical possibility exists. Other more decisive factors are needed that support education and meet society’s expectations in this field. Digital applications and techniques that are transmitted by the usage of the Internet correspond to a
2 According to Chartier the reader becomes co-author of an electronic text. “In front of a screen, the reader takes part in a writing process carried out by several players. He/she is at last in the position of creating a new text out of fragments that can be cut and pasted freely”
[CAV 97, p. 37].
Digital Libraries and Democracy 69 sophisticated logic that was created by the project managers of computer-assisted reading projects or HyperNietzsche [IOR 00]. Computer-assisted reading and writing require new skills that differ from those required during the reading/writing process of printed documents. These new programs are aimed at texts that become increasingly complex. However, advertising on the Internet targeting the general public states that these will make the consultation and exploitation of texts easier.
The values expressed in the advertising campaign are high speed, conviviality and interactivity. This new product makes the knowledge acquired by mankind accessible to everybody. The focus of digitization has shifted towards the Internet.
This new technology insists on its democratic character, i.e. it is linked to a second phase of enlightenment. Making knowledge accessible to everybody should enable mankind as a whole to progress. The analysis of a new logic in reading processes and textual practices is now taking place on a political and sociological level.
Except from predictions made by specialists in information and telecommunications and some futurologists, the new possible uses of digital data do not correspond to the applications that can be observed within the closed circles of university researchers. This is why we will move on to other questions. Other practices will be analyzed to gain an insight into the cultural significance of these new trends.