Arianne Baggerman @ The Unbound Book Conference – photo cc by-sa Sebastiaan ter Burg

Arianne Baggerman kicked off the session What is a Book?, by showing a video of a little girl, talking about ‘what she wants’ from libraries, as a digital native. This cynical take on media consumption in the digital era in relation to textuality and ‘bookness’ was the main subject of Baggerman’s lecture.

Baggerman was concerned with the question of what a book was. She criticized e-books for their short durability compared to the printed book. Throughout Baggerman’s talk there was an explicit hint of cultural pessimism concerning the sustainability of the e-book. In line with that thought, she argued that there were several crucial features the printed book had that should be conserved in the digital era. She argued that many of the features of new media technologies did not contribute to the reading experience in a positive way, as she rejected digital multimediality in this context.

The negative effects of digital media on the intellect.

In Baggerman’s opinion, a return to the reading experience of that of the physical book is desirable, because the cognitive capabilities of today’s youth are diminishing compared to their preceding generation. Baggerman referred to a book by Mark Bauerlein, called ‘The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies America‘, which she said is evidence for the argument that digital media are not increasing knowledge. She said that they are actually decreasing traditional skills, especially dumbing down the generation that grew up with the internet. She was also critical of the limitless optimism of the skills that young people would develop while playing computergames or browsing the internet, or the use of games as educational tools.

Baggerman shifted the focus to how we can conserve traditional values, ingrained in the historical physical form of the book. The effects of the ‘unstoppable train’ of digitization on the brain will take years to show. She pointed to the fact that traditional modes of learning (parents, teachers) are still the determining factor in the education of children, arguing that (cultural) new media projects across the web have had low visitation rates.

She referred to Nicholas Carr’s ‘The Shallows’ when she said that linear reading stimulates creativity, whereas the internet on the contrary stimulates primary functions: “Young digital natives are sponges, that absorb irrelevant information.” As she noted: “The message is clear: books are in, but reading is out.” The long form of attention, as mentioned by Alan Liu, is missing. There is only attention for bite-size information, according to Baggerman.

Towards an alternative to the e-book

The solution Baggerman sees is integrating the features of the printed book into a new device – without the distractions of multimedia – where the content maintains a stable form. She pointed to devices which allow its user to bend and fold pages, like a traditional book.

She said the book of the future would be made of paper, as it would stimulate reading, cost less and be more durable with regard to the content. The entire culture should be shaped in books. The history of 500 years of reading belongs to our cultural memory, like the single physical book belongs to our individual memory. Baggerman sees books as stepping stones, which should not just be remembered as content, but also keeping in mind their materiality. There has been too little focus, according to Baggerman, on this materiality and the influence it has on the individual as well as on the collective memory of people, established throughout 500 years of reading. In her work Baggerman celebrates the tranquility of the reading experience for the solitary subject: individuals project their memories onto the physical book, determined by its taste, smell, weight and signs of former readers.

Baggerman also expected a divide between higher and lower income classes, fearing that the lower classes might only be able to afford digital access to text, whereas the rich would be able to purchase print books. The reaction from the audience was that we have libraries to perform these tasks.

There were also some assumptions of what is ‘good’ in physical books and ‘bad’ in new media, that were challenged by some people in the audience. It was said that the ‘lack of concentration’ in the digital era needs further examination.

We can all underline the important influence the physical book has had on our society, and will continue to have, for ages to come. However, we have to ask this question: is Baggerman’s perspective not too much of a romanticized view on the traditional, physical book? She sees the possibilities of new technologies for the reading experience, but why exclude e-books from this? They have also acquired a right to exist among us. For to cling to the metaphor of the physical book too much, means losing sight of the promise that e-books and other digital reading experiences have, regardless of what form they appear in. 

Arianne Baggerman

Arianne Baggerman studied history at Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. Baggerman is a member of the editorial board of Quaerendo. A Quarterly Journal from the Low Countries Devoted to Manuscripts and Printed Books. In 2006 she launched an international book series, Egodocuments and History published by Brill, of which she is co-editor. She teaches history at Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam and she was in 2009 appointed professor in the history of publishing and book trade at the Universiteit van Amsterdam.

You can find her extended biography on the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication website