Morte De Reader?

This morning I have been musing on this interesting phenomenon, the Death of the Reader. (Apologies to Barthes.)

It started with an innocent post on Advergirl, about how her latest book to read is underneath her PS3. And it reminded me of the NEA report scare from before Christmas about how Americans are reading less than they used to. NPR's Talk of the Nation carried the story.

But book sales data is showing it to be true.

There's a great article from this summer's Washington Post.com: Harry Potter and the death of Reading. A chilling excerpt:

We're experiencing the literary equivalent of a loss of biodiversity.

Alane sent me a great futurist article about whether we would all stop reading altogether by 2050, in favor of voice. (I won't give away the conclusion here--but you may postpone the monograph bonfire at least until tomorrow...)

And of course I approach all of this with a healthy skepticism.

I have not yet read the NEA study. But I do wonder what model of reading they consider "official." Does it count all the little black squiggley things I roam around in, in my online world? Or is reading online not considered *real* reading?

And maybe it shouldn't be. IS there such a thing as *real* (as opposed to psuedo, imaginary, forced or otherwise unreal) reading?

Prototyping the Future Library

Thanks to Darlene Fichter for pointing out* this really excellent video from the Aarhus Public Library in Denmark. "When everything is available online, why come to the library at all?" The video attempts to answer this.

It is in English and reports on a project they called The Transformation Lab that included the Literature Lab, the Music Lab (which included an Inspiration Zone), the News Lab, The Square, and the Exhibition Lab.

They present five lessons learned (and shown):
- flexible spaces are necessary
- open events are a good idea and well received
- the physical library needs to be augmented with interactive technology
- networking is critical among users, IT specialists, library staff, architects etc
- users need to have a more visible role inside the library

Simple techniques produced the greatest impact...the users like to become involved "as long as it was not too much trouble and providing it brings about an instant result."

The narrator comments that users have been forced to dismiss the book as library brand (makes me wonder if they've read The Perceptions report) and that they are co-creators of a new library space.

And reading the credits, I see the project was supported by the Danish National Library and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So, are libraries in North America making grant applications for such projects?


*Darlene has other good videos noted at "Blog on the Side".

Europe in 2020

Noted in the World Future Society's e-newsletter Futurist Update, April 2007 (links and emphasis added):

"On his Web site FutureCheck, Dutch futurist Marcel Bullinga offers a tantalizing glimpse of Europe in the year 2020--a society boosted by the transparent, intelligent, virtual world. This video is an abridged version of what Bullinga shows during his live presentations."

The 1:35 video is on the FutureCheck site and Youtube here.

1001 Posts

Well, we are like Scheherazade in that we've told 1,001 stories here at It's All Good since our first post on May 20, 2004. Although, as far as I know, none of us will be executed if we stop telling stories--but I could be wrong.

It's fitting that our newest IAGer, Chrystie, made the 1,001 post.

If we posted all the stories we come across, we would be way way over this number--Alice and I seem to exchange at least two emails a week bemoaning the number of items we would like to blog about and don't find the time to, amidst all the other things we have to do.

So, perhaps a brain scan that can read my intentions and then make words based on what I planned to blog about will help get more things out of my head and into IAG.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, and University College London and Oxford University in England, have apparently developed a technique for doing at least the first part of this--looking inside peoples' brains and reading their intentions before they act, according to this article published in The Guardian Online today.

Very "future-y" and Minority Reportish. Maybe public libraries that charge fines for overdue materials can recoup money earlier in the process--say, before the material is even borrowed--by scanning the brains of borrowers and fining those who clearly have the intention of returning stuff late.

Happy Friday.