The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future

This book is a collection of essays about books. Darnton is enthralled about the possibilities of Google Books, because it has the potential of providing a worldwide library available to all those with access to the internet, but he is also concerned with Google being a monopoly, and he is realistic about copyright holders who may think twice about wanting to make all of their books available online without reasonable compensation. Darnton is not worried about the future of books in codex form, since it will be very difficult for modern technology to make something easier and more portable and convenient than an actual bound book. He envisions a world where there will be an increasing variety of ways to access information. Darnton is an 18th century European scholar, and this comes through in some of the essays. He shows how even journalists from that era wrote stories that were based on faulty fact finding, just as internet bloggers are often accused of today. The essays in The Case for Books are placed in reversed chronological order, but they show how well Darnton has been able to see into the future of books. The last essay is of value because it provides a powerful proposal for schools to consider the history of books as an area worthy of study. This book is well worth reading, and it will make you love books more, both bound and unbound.

Robert Darnton doesn't want to have to choose between books and e-books. That's at the core of this compelling collection of essays and articles, some of which have been published elsewhere and some of which are new. He wants knowledge to be available and accessible -- and loves the idea of how new technologies can accomplish that. On the other hand, he has a number of concerns about the unintended or unexpected consequences of a future that rests solely on digital content, such as the fact that Google and others pursuing projects to digitize books aren't doing so as a public service. As Darnton points out, they do not see libraries as "temples of learning", but rather buildings that contain "potential assets or what they call 'content', ready to mined" at a cost that will be a fraction of the expense that went into building those collections. Some of the interesting topics touched on in this eclectic collection are the economics of publishing -- what is a scholar to do in a world where university presses can't count on selling 800 copies of a monograph? Can electronic publishing help meet the needs of the scholarly community to publish or perish -- and what is the price that would be paid? Darnton speaks out about the tendency of some librarians to value space and what that means for preservation; as well as the dangers associated with simply tossing out old newspapers after reproducing them on microfilm. (What if the microfilm is fuzzy? What if someone made margin notes that aren't reproduced; yet those margin notes inform later scholars or historians far more than the original content itself, with the passage of time?) There is an essay on bibliography and the importance of studying the history of the publication of a book or work (such as the various folios of Shakespeare). My favorite of these essays, however, revolves around the way we read. Today, most of us wouldn't dream of reading in any other way from beginning to end (unless we cheat and try to find out how a mystery or romance novel ends because we can't stand the suspense). Darnton explores the way in which earlier generations of avid readers approached their books in a very different and far more utilitarian manner, using them as source material. That in turn begs the question of how differently we may approach content a few centuries from now. Darnton's collection is a plea of sorts to consider how we can keep what is valuable even as we open new doors to the transmission of our thoughts and ideas in print, whether on paper or cyber-paper. I've rated this book 4.5 stars; rounded it down because some of the material overlaps and repeats (particularly the early chapters focusing on Google Book Search) and because Darnton doesn't go far enough in establishing a common theme linking and connecting these essays and articles. I'm familiar with many of the topics Darnton touches upon, and with the history of printing and publishing, and still found myself pausing to try and follow his train of thought and logic as I moved from one piece to the next. Each of those segments, however, will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in what the digital age means for conventional publishing, for scholarship and for readers, particularly since Darnton approaches his topics with clear eyes and a level head. This is no latter-day Luddite eager to bash technology, just someone who is trying to understand both its merits and the new set of risks it creates. Recommended primarily to those interested in the general topic of publishing and cyber-publishing; I'd also suggest reading Darnton's excellent The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France , which explores the ways in which even before the Internet and e-books, eager readers found ways to circumvent attempts at censorship.

I bought this book after seeing Darnton on Book-TV. It's nice to have his words captured in codex form. The book is thoughtful and hopeful in tone with lots of hard data, but be prepared for a bit of repetition and a lot of attention to Darnton's pet electronic book project. All in all, a must have for those who hope the book will endure in the electronic age.

This book wasn't what I had in mind when I set out to research an eBook talking about eBooks. I found the information to be interesting, but essentially out of date. I'm not sure why Darnton is so resistant to the eBook wave... it's coming whether he likes it or not and to ignore it and say things like he does about libraries fighting to keep their print books and not offer digital outlets to save it are sort of useless. Unfortunately, I felt like I wasted my 10 bucks to read this and wished I had chosen something more worth my while. Also, the Kindle app for iPhone might not be the best way to consume this material. While it is okay, I found the small screen and not having the ability to use e-ink kind of exhausting. Try it on the Kindle if anything.

That's a very, very good book: 1. wonderful argumentation, 2. a broad spectrum of sub-topics, 3. no triviality, 4. bright personal idiom of speaking about the subject. Do believe to someone like me who has read a lot about publishing and books (i've been doing that more than 18 years).

In this book of highly enjoyable essays, Robert Darnton explores the printed page vs the coming digital revolution. Will the book as we have know it survive and what will be the effect on society if it doesn't? Darnton's approach is thoughtful and timely, giving the earnest lover of books plenty to ponder over. This is a book about books. I highly recommend it.

Darnton's book is not quite what it seems. The title of The Case for Books seems to indicate that the contents would be details on the importance of books as they currently exist. In this age of the digitization of nearly everything that isn't nailed down, a lot of bibliophiles feel that their treasures are being attacked and may disappear in the near future. It is these current conditions that lead the reader to believe they know what arguments Darnton will be trying to prove once the cover is turned back. As it turns out, only the new "chapter" on Google fits most expectations. Darnton makes a case both for and against digitization of books, but mostly he comes out against. One reason is the potential for loss of control of the books by both authors and publishers that could be a result of this and other projects. Another reason is having the control of much of the written word in the hands of one entity. This does not bode well for anyone in the business - including readers. Whether this is Google's intent, the project does tend to bring out the paranoia in those who believe in access to all books by all people. The rest of the book is a re-printing of several earlier essays by Darnton, something that is not mentioned specifically on the book covers. Some of these are interesting, some are not. The chapter on the grant proposal would be useful only for someone looking for a sample of such, and does not make interesting reading. The same could be said for the chapter "The Importance of Being Bibliographical. Now, the chapter on commonplace books was delightful, especially since this was a term I had never heard. I am familiar with marginalia (the practice of writing comments in the margins of books). Although I'd never heard the term commonplace books, copying down passages from books as I read them is a long-time part of my reading habits. It was also interesting to learn the differences in how we read today (starting at the beginning and reading straight through) vs. the way our ancestors read (reading various parts out of order). That this difference may be due in part to the popularization of novels is an interesting idea. Much of this book was interesting to read, but it didn't quite live up to the promise of its title. Readers interested in problems we face in the publishing world today might find Digital Barbarians of interest. It deals with copyright issues that have been created in a world where so much information is easily available, and some don't believe in ownership rights of authors and publishers.

In this loosely structured series of essays, author Robert Darnton again and again emphasizes the theme of openness in regard to the free flow of information. Early in the text he cites the quote found at the entrance to the Boston Public Library: "Free to All". The problem is that Darnton is director of not the Boston Public, but rather that library across the river, the Harvard University Library, arguably the most exclusive and closed library in the world. Access to the Harvard Library is reserved only for the relative handful of faculty, staff and students of Harvard, outsiders cannot even enter the building. And the Harvard Library is notorious among other academic libraries for not sharing its resources, it has a reputation of serving only its narrowly defined clientele. Ironically, access to the collections of the Boston Public is also highly restrictive: the vast majority of its collections is non-circulating and in closed-access stacks. Darnton speaks of the condescending attitude many academics have toward (mostly female) librarians, and yet Darnton himself continues the hallowed tradition of Harvard appointing male non-librarians as director--speaking of condescending! Indeed, many of the contradictions that can be found in this book are precisely because Darnton is not a librarian and has never worked in a library as a professional. The reality is that research libraries have been suffering from an extended crisis that has led to the content of their collections becoming increasingly inaccessible. As others here have pointed out, Darnton's target of wrath here is Google, and he has come out forcefully as a strong critic of Google's book digitizing efforts. For Darnton, libraries somehow provide assurance that access to information will remain "free", something that commercial enterprises like Google cannot guarantee. In setting up this argument, Darnton completely loses sight of the radical transformation that digitizing and the Internet has introduced in providing unfettered access to information. In spite of his having worked on digital projects himself, Darnton from his ivory tower fails to recognize the profoundly democratizing impulse of large-scale projects like Google Books. What were once available only to the highest level scholars in rabidly guarded rare collections, are now thrown open for anyone in the world to download and use in their own research. In like manner, Darnton also throws up red flags regarding Google's efforts to provide access to millions of "orphan books" existing in copyright limbo. These books have little or no commercial value and yet fully antiquated and dysfunctional copyright laws prevent the valuable content of these books from being made more available. Google has fashioned an elegant solution to this problem, one that will provide untold benefits in making poorly accessible but valuable information more available. For a variety of twisted reasons Darnton is against all this. Why? Why would a scholar library director oppose providing better access to information? In a word, Darnton is an excellent representative of "vested interests". In spite of libraries being mired in crisis and their ongoing inability to provide better access to their collections, Darnton wants libraries to continue to be the monopolistic gatekeepers of information. Google, digital information, and the Internet represent a serious threat to a two-thousand year tradition of the library's monopoly to access to information. This also helps to explain why a researching scholar would defend the totally dysfunctional copyright laws that currently exist only to restrict greater access to information. Copyright by its very nature protects the intellectual property of an individual, and should not exist longer than 25 years (representing the anticipated career of an author). That copyright has been extended to almost a century now is totally ludicrous in terms of the benefits to society and to open access to information. If read with such a critical eye, Darnton's small tome can be read with some benefit, as a case-study for understanding why some entrenched academics and librarians are so critical of Google's efforts in revolutionizing access to information. What it comes down to is seeing through the rhetoric of Darnton's "Free to All" for what it really is: "Free to All Faculty, Staff, and Students of Harvard", vs Google's understanding of "Free to All". As with the old aristocracy of Europe's Ancien Regime, it is important to see through this rhetoric and recognize that, in the end, Diderot and d'Alembert would have embraced Wikipedia.