Mixed Media

With the shift from analog to digital, books on vinyl or tape have given way to digital audiobooks, and the printed book shares customers with the ebook. These can be loaned on a temporary basis from libraries, or purchased outright. The first electronic books appeared on single-function, proprietary devices. Later, they became broadly accessible via applications on any smart phone or tablet.

Just as the phonograph opened new ways of interacting with and understanding sound, so the digital book presents new modes of reading andreaderly response. When Barnes and Noble launched the Nook, the Nook Book, a guide to using this new device, soon followed. The guide shows how to perform basic functions such as accessing a desired book, as well as how to annotate, save one’s place, or ask to borrow a friend’s ebook -- all actions that would require no explanation for conventionally printed works. The Nook Book also shows owners how they can write and publish their own content for the Nook using self-publishing platforms.

Thus, while ebooks and ereaders offer possibilities for today’s readers, they have not yet overtaken the physical book to the same extent as digital have displaced analog records. Yet the possibilities are intriguing, and the current state of technology for both listening and reading makes the two formats more closely connected than ever before. The MP3 player allows owners a level of portability unimaginable in the early days of the phonograph, with its bulky cylinders or heavy 78s; and similarly, the ebook allows readers to carry hundreds of titles wherever they go.

Reading in the digital age is even more private than what could be accomplished with the printed books displayed elsewhere in this exhibition. Without covers or other external markers, passersby would need to be very close indeed to notice what someone is reading on a device in a public space. The same cannot always be said of listening, depending on the volume of the music and the headphones/earbuds used (or not used) by the listener. At this point, sound technology has produced noise-cancelling headphones as yet another means of providing a private acoustical environment, excludingoutside sound. We have come full circle from Athanasius Kircher’s 17th-century plans for transmitting and amplifying sound in various situations, including public places.