Semiology 'Runs' to Catch Up with the Internet : On Book Power

"About Umberto Eco"

------------------ Also quotes from a 2002 article
in The Guardian,
Saturday October 12, 2002

"Signs of the times"

by Maya Jaggi


When the former hotel building in Milan where Umberto Eco lives was converted into flats, he preserved the winding corridors as a labyrinthine library, housing some 30,000 volumes. The shrine to learning seems apt for the creator of the 14th-century monastery in The Name of the Rose (1980), the medieval murder mystery that combined metaphysics, theology and the enigma of Aristotle's "lost" tome on comedy, with poisoned monks and the twists of a Sherlock Holmes whodunnit - a "book built of books".

His paternal grandfather was a bookbinder and "socialist typographer who organised strikes". During the second world war it was one of Eco's duties to go down to the cellar with a candle and pick up the charcoal: "I spent hours opening the old books and forgetting the coal." Among books he found were works by Jules Verne and Marco Polo, and included Darwin's The Origin of Species** and piles of adventure comics. His maternal grandmother, barely schooled but a "compulsive reader" who subscribed to a mobile library, stoked this eclectic passion. "She had no real cultural discrimination: she could read dime novels as well as Dostoyevsky and Balzac."

** ( - - Note by Bogaulaire: and "The Voyage of the Beagle" was what U. E. liked most about the book . . I'll bet.)

---------

.
Photo of Umberto Eco by Robert Birnbaum

In 1978 . . Eco's career took a dramatic new turn. At a friend's invitation, he decided to write a detective story . . .
. . . He also decided to make it a demonstration of his own literary theories of an "open text" that would provide the reader with almost infinite possibilities for interpretation in the signs and clues the protagonist must decode in order to solve a mystery.

Set in a fourteenth-century monastery, The Name of the Rose is the story of a monk who tries to solve several murders while struggling to defend his quest for the truth against church officials. A main theme of the novel is Eco's own
love of books, and the solution to the murders ultimately lies in coded manuscripts and secret clues in the abbey's library. Dense with learned references and untranslated Latin, it is both an exhaustively detailed murder mystery and Eco's semiotic metaphor for the reader's own quest to derive meaning on many levels from the signs in a work of art. Its publishers expected to sell no more than 30,000 copies, but the novel became an international bestseller. In 1986 it was made into a film starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater.

. . .

In recent years Eco has become increasingly involved in debates of how electronic media and computer technologies will affect culture and society. At the International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Science in San Marino in 1994, he organized a seminar on the future of the book that attracted hypermedia experts from around the world. His own observations on the Internet, virtual reality, and hypertext have appeared in Encyclomedia, a CD-ROM history of philosophy that he helped to develop. Recently he has become involved with the Multimedia Arcade, a complex in Bologna offering Internet access, a computer training center, and a public multimedia library.

. . .

"We are marching toward a more liberated society in which free creativity will co-exist with textual interpretation," he said, but we will need a "new form of critical competence … "a new kind of educational training, a new wisdom" to cope with the sheer quantity of information.

. . .

Writing in The Nation, he asserted that "books still represent the most economical, flexible, wash-and-wear way to transport information at very low cost." Books will remain essential not only for literature but for "any circumstance in which one needs to read carefully, not only to receive information but also to speculate and reflect about it." In his opinion, a device which allows us to invent new texts has nothing to do with our ability to interpret pre-existing texts.

. . .

Eco is an avid book collector who has apartments in Milan, Bologna, and Paris, as well as a summer home near Rimini. In addition to running the Program for Communication Sciences at the University of Bologna, he travels frequently to speak and teach. He continues to publish scholarly treatises, which number almost two dozen, and to contribute to several foreign and Italian newspapers.

. . .

See Wikipedia Article HERE.

University of Michigan 'Sees' A Post on CPE -- YIPEE !

Today, proudly, Cheap Priceless Editions was given a linked mention on the University of Michigan's list of Internet sites and posts (Boxxet Links) under the category 'Education'. We made the 'Best' Box.

The university's search site of various links is updated daily and choses a different focus each day. CPE was referenced under an announcement regarding Google partnering with the University of Texas to digitize part of their library collection. A similar project, the initial one in fact, of the Google Library Project, was undertaken at the U of M in December 2004.

Blogaulaire, along with several other bloggers with far greater expertise and experience than moi, highlighted our reservations about Google having free reign in how such digitized archives are distributed outside non-profit, public foundations and universities.

The only connection Blogaulaire has with this university is that it is the one and only campus venue at which I got together with Abbie Hoffman back when we were . . .

But I digress. Maybe if the U of M knew more about that 'moment', they would not have chosen to upload a link to CPE!

I'm kidding folks. Abbie's dead and I've mellowed so much, I might as well be. :) (wry, withering smile)


See HERE !!

We Call Our Bus Patty Patchwork

//sarcasm//
This application may not have much bandwidth but it moves faster in P2P downloads than the legacy site servers in its class.

It's like distributed computing using a needle and thread for modular interface configuration. //END SARCASM//

Two quilting buddies in southeastern Iowa wanted to open a quilting shop but couldn't decide in which town to settle. So they bought a bus for $1,200 and took their fabric on the road.

All this commercial linking in crazy-quilt patterns could spread virally, who knows?

Two quilting buddies in southeastern Iowa wanted to open a quilting shop but couldn't decide in which town to settle. So they bought a bus for $1,200 and took their fabric on the road.


More than two years ago, quilting buddies Gay Murphy and Kris Kelderman were pondering the idea of owning a quilting store when they retired.

"Being in rural Iowa, it was kind of hard to think of a place to put a quilting shop," said Murphy, 43, who lives in Eddyville, in southeastern Iowa. Kelderman, 52, is from nearby Kirkville.

That's when Murphy's childhood memories of visiting mobile libraries while living in Des Moines** sparked the idea: How about a quilt shop on wheels?

Their business, Patchwork Peddlers, has been on the move since January 2005, delivering quilting supplies to customers in rural Iowa. They also regularly park at the Hy-Vee parking lot in Albia on Mondays, and at the Hy-Vee in Ottumwa on Tuesdays.

The two women have also taken their green 1984 Ford Bluebird bus to visit quilt guilds in the state, as well as in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Minnesota.

"We call our bus Patty Patchwork," Murphy said.

** - Blogaulaire: 'Been there, done that; glad it inspired someone.' And I was paid 69 cents an hour to travel with and reshelve the mobile library - not bad for a 14-year-old kid at the time. Not as good as caddying, but better than delivering newspapers.

pps: //edit added// The more I think about this Des Moines Register article, the more questions I have. Murphy and Kelderman retire 'kinda yung' wouldn't you say? So I wonder from what employment each 'retired'. Plus, they landed a damn good set of wheels for the price if they can buzz around eastern Iowa every week and go to quilt guilds from Oklahoma to Minnesota whenever they please.

A book-bus that is or was at one time operated by a non-profit group once came to a conference and book sale I attended. The vehicle was very special because it was modified to hold handcrafted chapbooks to promote the work of poets and artisans. So the load was very much lighter than with most mobile lending libraries. If anyone here know more about this, please post a link in your comment. I'll see what I can find on this end. Already, the first day it is posted, this article has proved to be very popular - several hits from interested persons.

Encyclopedic Archives, Books and Image Libraries : Combinations Bigger than Google

Today Blogaulaire discovered two compendia tools being compiled and hosted at the University of Sherbrooke, here in Québec. The Bilan du Siècle and the Perspective Monde are searchable archives that are like textual and visual electronic encyclopedias. If I were a reference librarian working in Québec, I would have links to both on my desktop always at the ready.

Links to both sites are on the homepage of the Faculté des lettres et sciences.




A list of the images in the archives for Bilan du Siècle is HERE. You don't need your high school French to read images.

When you browse to Perspective Monde, notice the button at the top of the page for ENGLISH and you will access the micropedia sections that have been translated.

This brings me to the issue of digital libraries.

In the proper hands, it is fantastic to have documents available in a library and on the Internet for viewing on a monitor. However, the real work and brain muscle goes into putting the documents into a search tree with worthwhile structure and commentary. Then it is important to provide labels and short, topical article entries, illustrations and tables, if what is made searchable is intended for anyone other than an advanced scholar in his or her specialised field of research.

The Sherbrooke archive source: HERE



The team at the University of Sherbrooke should be praised for what they have digitized, annotated and made searchable on line. The articles and timelines, just to mention two features I stumbled upon, are well done. (I hope some of you readers will look into this. I also hope that the work has been translated into English.)

I do not think anybody working for Google is competent to accomplish the same thing. Blogaulaire is not saying that Google ever claimed that they are competent at such scholarly, educational enterprises. But many, many people are creating buzz and momentum such that Google becomes the 800-pound gorilla that crushes all the competent cage mates (the real librarians and scholarly writers) up against the bars and out of the metaphoric zoo!

There is a huge, looming problem here. There is a threat on the horizon if anybody in their right mind EVER places confidence in Google or another private corporation and pays them to take on the sort of archival and electronic publishing projects that are currently the mandate of institutionally recognised teams, such as this one, that Blogaulaire just discovered.

Why bring Google into this?

This is all about the 'Google scans the world' issue as blogger J Godsey so tersely puts it on her blog Bibliophile Bullpen.

On another blog we are about to cite below, the matter is headlined in the post title and quote we are also about to cite. Links and credits also follow.

The Digital Battle For Our Literary Heritage: The Internet Archive vs. Google


From: Book Patrol


By Michael Lieberman - Antiquarian Bookseller
From his blog on the website of the Seattle newspaper The Post Intelligencer .

Michael Lieberman also has a personal blog by the same title where you find fewer enhancements like images and less emphasis on running human interest feature articles.

QUOTE

If Google wants to digitize the collections of private institutions by all means go ahead but to venture into the realm of digitizing the content of public institutions (remember University libraries are public institutions) is a slippery slope that unfortunately we have started to slide down.

We need to do all we can to stop this digital freight train. The message is simple. For profit companies cannot digitize the content of public institutions or public libraries.

Let the Internet Archive take care of digitizing the treasures of our public institutions and libraries. We can set aside a portion of the budget for the Library of Congress (a current supporter) and the Smithsonian Institution if need be or how about a 1% digital archive tax on every new computer purchased.

The point is we need to get creative here. Fast.

We need to buy back the rights that were sold to Google (at a premium of course) and go about doing this the right way.

END QUOTE

Lieberman's post is worth blogging in extenso. And thank you, Michael Lieberman, for crediting CPE for finding one of the source articles you link in your post.


Lately two of my posts here have been 'ripped' by both electronic and print media without so much as giving Cheap Priceless Editions eve a credit line! Thanks for the one you ran on Book Patrol, sincerely.

Keeping current on news about digital bookmaking

A KEYWORD 'CHEAT SHEET' for your own web crawl with hints, links and keywords to 'stay current' by searching for the e-book revolution manifesto.


I just linked over to slashdot.

A handful of regular posters over at slashdot.org have been scrutinizing news sources to decide whether Google is 'enjoying' success or failure in their touted Digitised Reading Revolution.

All the commenting and posting over there that I looked at was about this new sagaof Google entering the field of e-books while forging several partnerships with universities. Google is beginning to create vast digital libraries for these academic clients. (There are still lawsuits pending over these projects. The plaintifs, apparently, are some the the US's biggest book publishers.)

Google is being sued for an intent to engage in copyright violations by American publishing companies. Bitain's flagship publishing company Oxford) is NOT suing for divorce from Google, however; quite the contrary.

So far, this controversy is all about scanning library books.

On several other fronts, the Oxford University Press is working hand-in-glove with Google on commercial stuff like putting a Spanish dictionary on the iPod(TM). The terrain has become difficult to negotiate for casual onlookers out strolling the landscape of publishing. The paths fork and divide, some are probably dead-ends. The issue becomes complicated and contradictory.

It is at times like these - with 'dead tree' publishers facing challenges right and left - that we 'needs read' informed people's blog posts and online comments to discover what, if any analysis makes sense. The case is not yet in.

Blogaulaire offers help with a few keyword tools for your own Internet searches and for crawling the web on a news aggregator, if you use one.

Meme Theme = An e-book on my iPod'"is like an MP3 for the eyes"

- said with a sigh :)
Here are some keywords for search strings (some are meme themes) that you can search for on Technocrati, Yahoo, or the Google Blog Search option):
"book +" "search service", scan, digitize, searchable, + "library collections" +,"digital libraries", "Evan Schnittman", "book downloads" +, "Ralph Oman".

Other keywords that help zoom in on the topic are: nettamere (a regular slashdot poster) and "Google Print Program".


A QUOTE
from Elinor Mills
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 24, 2005

The Print Program has two components, one for publishers and one for libraries. Under the Google Publisher Program, the company is working with book publishers to make titles searchable and easy to purchase. The search result pages include advertisements if publishers want them, and most of the revenue goes to the publishers, Google said.

The controversial part of the Print Program, which has prompted two lawsuits so far, is the Print Library Project. Under the Library Project, the search giant is scanning, digitizing and making searchable parts or all of the collections from Stanford University, Harvard University, Oxford University, the University of Michigan and The New York Public Library.

from "Google's battle over library books
As the search giant pushes ahead with its book-scanning project, publishers are crying copyright foul, not fair use.

What Could be "Cheaper" than "Free"? My Local Library Card Allows Internet Access for $10 Membership -- Good for 3 Years !

Quit Marketing By the Book
From ClickZ's R. Lieb

"While they didn't break their necks rushing to get with the program, media companies have nevertheless made major concessions and changes to their business models over the past couple of years.

Meanwhile, most of their counterparts in book publishing are still stubbornly digging in their heels. Google is determined to smooth their path to digital enlightenment.

Come on, Rebecca Lieb, isn't the notion of ENLIGHTENMENT a little TOO RICH ??? After all, paper-based publishers have a longer track record at this than Google, Rebecca. You have to admit that!

Why would a search engine care about all that printed and bound paper? Google Book Search is why. If Google can persuade publishers to digitize their backlists and let Google crawl them (for starters -- the best-case scenario is all new releases), Google can offer more content to searchers, and more inventory to advertisers. Perhaps it can even collect more fees from its nascent Checkout service.

So in typical Google style (big!), the search engine invited publishers in for a day of talk at The New York City Public Library. The event was dubbed Un-Bound: Advancing Book Publishing in a Digital Era.

The Web evangelist speaker line-up was nothing short of stellar (although their names may be more familiar to you than they were to most of the publishers in the audience): Wired magazine's Chris Anderson (author of 'The Long Tail'); author and marketing guru Seth Godin ; Cory Doctorow, author, BoingBoing co-editor and USC Fulbright Chair; and Tim O'Reilly ."

Blogaulaire - a minor SIC to the quote: professor Cory Doctorow 'holds' the University of California chair; he is not the 'chairman' of the Fulbright anything.

Who is eponymous versus who is a blood relative? It alway confuses us.

I always think of author E. L. Doctorow ('Daniel', 'March') and my own dear colleague Cory Anderseed every time I see Cory Doctorow's name. (Every single time I go on the Internet it seems!)

Speaking of 'Doctorow's and Cory's

I have not searched it, but still wonder whether E. L. and C. Doctorow are related.

Anybody out there know the answer?

Other than Cory Anderseed and Cory Doctorow, the only other "famous" Cory I know is is our local boy wonder from wealthy Westmount (the hometown, BTW, of poet-song-writersinger Leonard Cohen who was discovered by Columbia Records of New York, through family conn . . .
. . . But I digress . . .)

Well, the only other Cory I ever knew was Cory Hart**.

** Cory Hart is/was a pop singer -- once-upon-a-time Idol of nearly every Québecoise teeny bopper in the 1980s.

CPE's 'Reading Nietzsche' Online while Blogaulaire Reads Aloud from the Paperback Book

I have the paperback edition in my lap, as I read a completely variant translation in English of the same text: Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

The online version on my monitor is from www.bibliomania.com/ . SEE this LINK.

My trade paperback version is:

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translation by. R. J. Hollingdale (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1961/69).

My memory of other translations, of other works by Nietzsche, is being thoroughly jogged as I recall debates in college over mis-translation of Nietzsche, particularly other works that seemed so important to budding 'thinkers' or whatever. I am thinking of what was published using the title "The Will to Power", translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1968).

It irritates me that what I see on my screen at Bibliomania, which is the entire Zarathustra (like the book in my hands), offers NO bibliographic citations, not even the name of a translator. If there are links, the only ones I can find are ads for yogic and esoteric sites offering their own esoteric 'spins' about Nietzsche the 'madman' philosopher. Yech!

At the same moment (thanks to googling) I can hop over to Pillwebb.net and find an ample number of bibliographic citations, but none that clarify which (if of any) translation refers to the online text at Bibliomania. (See the very end of the quoted section below - see how Bibliomania vaguely takes credit for an entirely original (their own copyrighted) version of Nietzsche's classical philosophic fable!)
Another odd thing is that the online text has a style that is very Biblic, almost Old Testament. I can guess that the on-line text must be a version that antedates Hollingdale and certainly the 'modern'Kaufmann in the period when the two collaborated.

In my softcover "Hollingdale Translation" in the Penguin edition (1961/69), I read, as an example of one way his translation differs from what we'll call "the Bibliomania Translation", in HT I read the terms 'Ultimate Man' while in BT I read 'the Last Man'.

But search me, scanning all the online material displayed at Bibliomania leaves the reader completely up in the air; the links do not tempt one to consult ANYTHING, especially not the original German text. Every translator's introduction of Nietzsche under the sun and between bound covers raises such issues. But that's not the style for on-line text versions. Here it's 'Hail the accessibility of e-books'. 'Hail reading in total ignorance.' Ignorance of all issues of interpretation, translation or inter-textual disagreements between editors.

The following 'fair use' citation can be followed in HT on p 45 to p 47. You can surf over to Bibliomania's BT version at Phill Webb (dot) net

5

Alas! there cometh the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man — and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whizz!

I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.

Alas! There cometh the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.
Lo! I show you the last man.

‘What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?’ So asketh the last man and blinketh.

The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.

‘We have discovered happiness,’ say the last men, and blink thereby.

They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one’s neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.

Turning ill and being distrustful they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!

A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.

One still worketh, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.

One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome.

No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse.

‘Formerly all the world was insane,’ say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby.
They are clever and know all that hath happened: so there is no end to their raillery. People still fall out, but are soon reconciled — otherwise it spoileth their stomachs.

They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night: but they have a regard for health.

‘We have discovered happiness,’ say the last men, and blink thereby.

And here ended the first discourse of Zarathustra, which is also called ‘The Prologue’: for at this point the shouting and mirth of the multitude interrupted him. Give us this last man, O Zarathustra, they called out. Make us into these last men! Then will we make thee a present of the Superman! And all the people exulted and smacked their lips. Zarathustra, however, turned sad, and said to his heart:
They understand me not: I am not the mouth for these ears.

Too long, perhaps, have I lived in the mountains; too much have I hearkened unto the brooks and trees: now do I speak unto them as unto the goat-herds.

Calm is my soul, and clear, like the mountains in the morning. But they think me cold, and a mocker with terrible jests.

And now do they look at me and laugh: and while they laugh they hate me too. There is ice in their laughter.

---------
The the closest Bibliomania comes to offering a credit/citation is:

How do I cite a Bibliomania work?
We do not have full bibliographic data for the texts on Bibliomania, and they were typed from scratch, repaginated and reformatted hence these works are an original edition and should be cited as copyright Bibliomania.com Ltd 2000.

What one finds for 'Zarathustra' as bibliographic references at Phillwebb.net:

Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. 1883-1885.
Thus Spoke Zarathrustra: a Book for All and None.
Trans. Graham Parkes. Oxford: OUP, 2005.
Trans. R. J. Hollingdale and Walter Kauffmann. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking, 1954.

Note - from Blogaulaire:
Do not blindly follow the links on Phillweb - you will end up with a videogame entitled 'Beyond Good and Evil' (Ubisoft).

Campaign for the American Reader: Books and their covers

This is a post we archived as a draft. We bring it forward because it hits on some points made in today's other posts. (By coincidence there is mention of last year's publication of the E. L. Doctorow novel "The March".

What I think is pertinent is the ease with which copyright in images is violated to put a book cover together. I am thinking about the digital book world along the lines that Google proposed to the publishing industry last Thursday (at the meeting in the New York City Library). Well I think that even for digitized fiction there will be a need for a digital cover, something attractive and a come-on to potential readers. And the whole thing being pitched as 'free' makes me conclude that all these backlist or even current titles will be 'covered' using unpaid artwork.

Marshal Zeringue could write 'steal' cover designs; Not 'reuse photography', in the text blogged below:


Books and their covers
Friday, January 12, 2007

Jeff Pierce writes at The Rap Sheet:
One of the very first posts I wrote for The Rap Sheet blog had to do with publishers and book jacket designers who, probably through inattention, reuse photography that’s previously fronted one or more other books.

Ever since, I’ve been keeping track of these “copy-cat covers,” and now present two more examples, from UK publishers.

See what he's talking about at: 'Did They Really Think Nobody Would Notice?'

Also on the subject of book covers, Pete Lit has posted on the 'Best and Worst Book Covers' of 2007. The worst cover belongs to E.L Doctorow's The March.

What a great book, what an awful cover. Click over to Pete Lit to see for yourself."

Click on the links to find the source posts mentioned above.