M.I.T.’s Nicholas Negroponte on Book Festivals, Publishing, Libraries
November 19 2009
With all the talk of a digital revolution in publishing it was reassuring for a literary agent and book festival director to discover that Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the famous M.I.T. Media Lab, and promoter of the One Laptop Per Child project is not only partnered by the head of the first Boston Book Festival, but also has a very optimistic view on the future of book festivals. Here’s how he responded in a recent interview:
You have written books and columns, but have more of a technical background. What motivated you to be part of a book festival?
Full disclosure: the President of the Boston Book Festival, Debbie Porter, is my partner. At first I offered normal family support and encouragement. Now I have become a nearly full-time employee, in charge of graphics and the technical sessions.
Will we still have "book festivals" in 10 years? 20? How will they change?
Reading and writing are not going away. Books and Publishing are. Note capital P.
Music festivals did not go away with the advent of CDs or iTunes. Likewise, words will live forever. There will always be festivals around their creative use -- storytelling in its many forms and nonfiction in it many categories. The word "book" may need to be reconsidered sooner rather than later.
Are books about objects or information? You often draw a line between bits and atoms. How can that fit into books? Do you expect that the "books" of the future will consist of "bits" from different authors, perhaps rearranged by "citizen editors" rather than professional ones? Or will they be completely unrecognizable to us now--more like "vooks" (video books)?
Books and stories are the classic example of medium and message, container and content. The two are easily confused. Confusion is amplified by an historical and concurrent event, the undoing of the publishing industry as we know it. The Boston Book Festival has a technical session that is distinctly about the future of reading, not the future of publishing. Note that the future of reading is not only driven by a deconstruction of the physical book, it is affected by social media, wherein reading itself becomes a social experience, as well as a personal one.
What about libraries? It seems that libraries should be leading a charge to digitize information. Some are, but some seem caught up in opposition to "being digital." Is there a way to get libraries digitized such that we could be checking out ebooks from online libraries soon?
Libraries are drenched in atoms. The physical storage of books, in one place, makes less and less sense, especially when you consider that 90% of the books are not checked out in five years.
My recent experience with the Boston Public Library, however, is that it is always full. It is a place to study and find quiet. It is a place to meet people. It is a way to browse information in a physical manner.
Nonetheless, the sheer cost of binding, shipping, storing, rearranging and replacing physical books will drive the change to virtual books in place like Boston. In places like remote Africa, they have no alternative and this change is welcome, the sooner the better.
Where do you stand on the Google Books Settlement? Is there a good way to get libraries, nonprofits, or governments to step up and digitize content if a corporation shouldn't be doing it? How could the Media Lab and similarly innovative organizations be part of a digitization solution for content?
Google's digitizing of books was far better before the need for a settlement. I wish they had continued with their original free and open approach. Instead, a guild representing just a few authors (8000) and a small handful of publishers forced a settlement that is not entirely in the general public's best interest. The settlement is being reconsidered at this moment, so I cannot prejudge it. It is not likely, however, to be as free and open as I would wish.
The One Laptop Per Child project has been both lauded and criticized (costly, wrong platform). How do you respond to criticisms? Where would you like to see the project go next? Would a Kindle or ereader be a workable alternative to a laptop for a project like this? What achievement/s of the project are you most proud of?
OLPC has reached over one million children in 19 languages and 31 countries, with another million queued up to go to places like Gaza, Afghanistan, Haiti, Cameroon and Mali. Furthermore, OLPC triggered the entire Netbook category of laptop (which could be a high as 30% of the world laptop market by the end of this year) and has been the downward pressure that has resulted in laptops in general costing 40% less than they did five years ago.
If you look at the criticism, especially the handful of hatchet jobs, they can be traced to commercial interests, to be honest. Nobody is arguing against kids being connected and having access to their own laptop. Also, when people ask me to prove that it works, I ask them if they need proof that electricity works. The only question on the table, the one and only, is the cost... how to pay for it. But, over a five-year period, the cost of purchase, connectivity, maintenance, shipping and support—the total cost of ownership—is one dollar per week, per child. Think of it that way and then ask why every child in the world does not have a connected laptop.
Courtesy of Resource Shelf. See: http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/11/14/nicholas-negroponte-on-books-libraries-and-google-book-search/
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I’ll be dealing with the Google Books Settlement in the next blog or so.
Tags: Add new tag, Boston Book Festival, Google Books Settlement, Libraries, M.I.T, Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child
