After reading the final chapter in Borsuk’s “The Book”, I was captivated by the idea that Borsuk talks about in how we need to start viewing the interface of the page and how we as a society interact with it. Never in my life would I have imagined the interface of a page as a “crystal goblet” in which the desired information can be shown to you easily due to the accessibility and utility that the interface has. “A good interface, according to human-centered design principles, is like Warde’s crystal goblet: a transparent vessel which we access information we want”(198). Borsuk highlights the importance of how we can use the tool and view it because it is something that we never really had interest, nor have we ever thought about it on that level. We are always concerned with the content, but never with the interface and how that may alter how we the readers view the text.

Physical book’s interface not only allows us to interact with the text and content itself, but with the concept of the interface itself in which we can also add information. Essentially, we are learning how to read the system of the interface at a closer level than usual. Considering how we interact with physical books, I found it intriguing on how we use e-books and try to replicate that same interface interaction from the physical books.

Another quote that stuck out to about how we interact with physical books and e-books is, ”To change the physical form of the artifact is not merely to change the act of reading . . . but to profoundly transform the metaphorical relation of word to world”(203). Going from physical to digital changes everything about how we as the reader interact with the artifact itself. Yes, it may be showing the same letters, words and content, but it is no longer using paper and that in itself already alters how the text should be viewed. See as how Borsuk mentions how it changes the metaphorical relation, this sentence reminded me of last week’s class discussion on how digital text is essentially code which is HTML and it is just a bunch of flashing lights. At its core, that’s what the artifact is and how do we the reader interact with that?