Page 47 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

plays in eBooks, may be viewed as analogous to the woodcuts and engraved images in fifteenth-century printed books. A related analogy may be drawn between the libraries of our time, with their holdings of physical books and their increasing focus on digital information and eBooks, and the libraries of the fifteenth century, all of which contained manuscript books, but which were increasingly augmented and supplemented by printed books as more and more printed information became available. Viewed in this way I think the analogy is complete.
Following my historical approach, I find this generalization a useful way to both to put the transition in media that is presently underway in perspec- tive, and to better understand the transition that occurred in the mid-fif- teenth century. In these essays I will provide a more thorough discussion of the transition from the manuscript to print, while occasionally mentioning details that relate that fifteenth and sixteenth century transition to our ex- perience today.
That the electronic book and eBook readers are adaptations of computing, networking, and various other electronic technologies is hardly different by analogy from the adaptations that Johannes Gutenberg, a former goldsmith, made to much simpler technologies nearly five hundred years ago when he adapted a wine or oil press for printing, adapted metal casting techniques to create movable printing types, and created an oil-based printing ink which would stick to his metal types. Gutenberg’s ink differed from the traditional water-based ink used to write manuscripts.21 While the electronic book is the product of many different electronic technologies developed by numer- ous inventors over more than fifty years since the invention of electronic computing it is probable that at least a few others besides Gutenberg were involved in aspects of the invention of printing.
In the fifteenth century printing by movable type was probably perceived as much more radical than electronic books are today within the context of our rapidly evolving habitual use of wireless devices such as laptops, tablets,
21 For a humorous music video on Gutenberg see Gutenberg (“Sunday Girl” by Blondie) by historyteachers, downloadable from YouTube. (This video remained available in August 2020.)
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