Author Archives: Allea Exum

Curiosities about Digital Bibliography

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When considering what a bibliography was, I assumed it would be a sort of contextual listing that could give context into the written contents of a book, similar to the bibliography seen at the end of essays. But, as The Bibliographical Society of America states on the About Page, “Bibliography is much more than your ‘works cited’ page.” A bibliography examines and assesses the physical aspects of a text and how those aspects relate and reflect the time the text was made. 

The art of bibliography is composed of numerous practices like enumerative, systematic, analytical, critical, descriptive, historical, and textual, as Terry Belanger mentions. All of which aim to decipher a book’s physicality and history. When reading how bibliography is approached and interacting with the examples on the website, I began to understand what sort of questions one must ask in order to really understand a book. Things like: What are the physical aspects of the paper used? Are there any splotches of ink from messy printing or etchings in the paper from whatever machine was used on the paper? What’s written on the page other than the story?

I thought it was interesting when interacting with the second sample of The Bibliographical Society of America’s About Page, which points out that “anonymous print production is a common occurrence, especially when the content is political.” When considering how political content was published anonymously, I thought about how today it’s almost virtually impossible to make any statement without a digital footprint being left behind. Though many posts may go under the radar as millions of people make daily posts, simultaneously, with enough care from one netizen, whoever made a certain post or appeared in some video can be traced, along with a good chunk of their personal history. This makes me wonder how modern bibliography is being approached today, especially because G. Thomas Tanselle, in Bibliography Defined,” mentions that “traditional bibliographical approaches are also now being applied to objects carrying electronic texts.” Reading how books can be explored outside of just their written content, though it’s most certainly considered, has gotten me excited to attempt creating my own bibliography with something from Special Collections. 

Bring Back Handcrafting Letter Stamps

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In the second chapter of The Book, Borsuk investigates the evolution of book content from the font to the binding and how that changed the way in which people approach books today. Borsuk begins with the origins of the modern codex, which lies with Gutenberg’s printing press in the 1440’s. But as Borsuk notes, “as much as we laud Gutenberg, he was not actually the first person to print with movable type,” instead,  it was “Chinese engineer, Bi Shen who developed a technique for printing from clay type he carved by hand” (73). I appreciated this acknowledgement because, not only does it highlight the reality of the movable type’s history, but it also shows how book practices developed relatively independently, as explored in the previous chapter.

Today, when typing, plenty of people don’t even have to consider their font choices so seriously. Though we might change it from Arial to Times New Roman, or if we’re feeling silly, Papyrus or Comic Sans, the labor, artistry, and history of creating fonts isn’t taken into account. In this chapter of The Book Borsuk, when discussing the printing press, goes into how Gutenberg and others had to literally create their own font. This task was more than just designing how letters would appear, but also how. The metal cast had to be strong enough to withstand the force of a printing press but not so hard that it destroyed the paper it was going on. In Gutenberg’s case, he “formulate[ed] his own alloy of tin and lead” (66) that was strong and had a low melting point. Borsuk then explains the complicated process of creating the stamps for the movable type, which was a lot to take in. With this page-long explanation, I realized the convenience of modern screens, keyboards, and printers. Gone are the days of arduous labor that required people to handcraft a single letter and put their full weight into pressing those handcrafted stamps onto handcrafted paper with an ink that was also made by hand. I think because of our disconnect with the labor that goes into the crafting of a book, in addition to its more automated route of creation, the path to fetishization of the book becomes easier.

The Book’s Influence on Writing

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The first chapter of The Book by Amaranth Borsuk discusses the evolution of today’s codex’s predecessors, the development of writing surfaces, and oral and written language. In the exploration of early forms of books, like tablets, scrolls, jiance, etc., Borsuk inevitably reaches the topic of written language as a natural consequence of the development of the book is the evolution of both written and oral communication. 

I had never considered that writing developed alongside the birth of book forms. For some reason, I just assumed writing simply developed from language and someone trying to visualize that language, as is the case in the creation of Hangul. I also certainly never considered how that could also shape a language. When Borsuk brought up cuneiform, I never considered that it was because of the resources available, being the reed for a stylus, that the Sumerians’ written language, composed of lines and triangles, was a result of it. It was more similar to early pictographic languages like hieroglyphics and Chinese. 

Another example of the format on which language is written influencing the written language is the jiance, which “influenced the very shape of Chinese writing” (Borsuk, 26). Borsuk details the crafting of jiance by cutting bamboo and tying the strips together to make a writable surface out of the abundance of bamboo in China. When visualizing the jiance process, I was confused about how writing on it worked since bamboo, even when sliced open, isn’t that big. Borsuk then revealed that “the traditional Chinese style of writing from top to bottom arises directly from the book’s materiality – a bamboo slip was too thin to permit more than one character per line” (26). Reading this explanation made everything click in my mind on how writing and books are intertwined in their influence on each other. 

This chapter solidified when we talked about the book being a physical thing that influences writing and works alongside it. Though the idea made sense, it was still abstract to me until now. I enjoyed learning about how different old script was compared to today and how written language was crafted to be easier for oration, at least in Greek and Roman culture. Considering how books and language are now, it’s amazing to see how we have changed communication to fit our cultural and societal needs.

The Fear of Losing Books and the Art of Reading

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In both Michelle Levy and Tom Mole’s “Introduction” to The Broadview Introduction to Book History and Professor Pressman’s “Old/New Media,” the history and evolution of the book are examined to understand the ever-changing production and consumption of books. The Broadview Introduction does this by exploring and establishing “four epochs in the history of the book” (xv) and defining “intensive” and “extensive” reading.” Dr. Pressman similarly explores this subject by considering the impact of “new media” on “old media.” By doing so, both excerpts made me consider how interactions with physical media, specifically books, have evolved and been forced to change with digital media growing alongside them. 

Levy and Mole open up an interesting conversation in Book History’s Introduction about the act of reading and its relation to materiality. They write, “the history of reading can be told as a transition from intensive and extensive reading,” and that “by the end of the eighteenth century, the sense of information overload…became a generalized concern” (xviii). This sentiment, discussed in the Introduction, remains relevant today when pertaining to the internet as a source for literature. It is undeniable that the internet holds a plethora of information that is easily accessible, and because of this ease of access, it is valid to be concerned that society as a whole is losing its ability to read intensively, as we are not forced to sit and bear with a book and can simply search for another online article or book. But, as Levy and Mole mention, this concern of an information overload being the downfall of knowledge when information becomes more easily accessible and available, has plagued us for a couple of centuries now. Levy and Mole reassure us that the extensive reading style associated with abundant information is “a positive set of skills that we use to negotiate information overload” (xix) and that “different reading practices tell us that people read in different ways for different reasons, and that they have always done so” (xix). 

Though I think Levy and Mole’s diffusion of the fear of reading and books becoming a dying practice is effective, and their explanation of how people use intensive and extensive reading for different purposes is true, considering that this was written pre-COVID pandemic, interactions with the internet and people have changed. There has been a significant shift to reliance on the internet and new technologies that don’t require human interaction or encourage deep thinking. I do believe that people have always feared new technologies, whether it be books or computers, but it can be hard to ignore the paranoia of rising anti-intellectualism when you’re living through a time of change.

Reflections of Today and Borges’ “Library of Babel”

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Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel” is a fantastical thought exercise that essentially reflects various human reactions to abstract questions in a thoughtful and sometimes humorous way. Borges sets up the story to take place inside a library which equates to the whole world for the people living inside it. The Library contains an infinite amount of books which have a perpetually endless combinations of letters and punctuation. With this knowledge many librarians have formulated their own schools of thought and way of life to accommodate conceptualizing and dealing with their world. 

When reading the short story, I enjoyed the diversity of thought within each librarian and how that manifested in their living, or rather, coping. In the uncertainty of the Library, librarians created things like religion and a norm culture to help regulate their way of life. A group that stood out to me the most was the Purifiers, who would invade “the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves” (Borges, 6). I think their response to the chaos of their world makes sense, but it almost feels rash in their need for control. The Purifiers’ line of thought mirrors plenty of people’s beliefs today, as many grapple with our chaotic world by simply trying to carve it into what their perfect world would look like. I think an example of this, relevant to today, is book banning. The act of banning books often reads as a response from adults who cannot grapple with the notion that the world is more than what they can conceptualize, so in turn, they try to control what they can to make more people similar to themselves. Borges does this reflection of our world in the Library repeatedly with different philosophies and religions, which made me love and ponder on this piece for a long time.

Introduction

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Hello all! My name is Allea, and I’m a fourth-year English major. I’m super excited to learn more about books as a medium and the preservation of them in this new digital age. I think archival work is becoming more significant than ever in these times, as information is being warped and presented in a believable way. I cannot wait to learn alongside y’all!