The ten reading revolutions before e-books was an interesting and eye-opening article. A noteworthy point about the revolutions is that they explain how we got to where the human race is today. As the shift from papyrus to parchment and then paper revolutions occurred, many more texts and articles were easier to publish, allowing people from different financial backgrounds (not just the wealthy) to afford to publish their works and advertise to more people at little costs. Despite this, what are these revolutions suggesting about the future of books? As we talked about the culture of using millions of digitized books in class a few weeks ago, we mentioned how the evolution of grammar shift dramatically, the number of new English words, and with history, suppression of certain works and censorship of people.  In comparison with this article, the reading revolutions have changed what type of information can be displayed on a single page, and technology allows a person to access new bits of information within seconds’ time.

While I was reading this article, I cannot help thinking about the next reading revolution about to unfold. With this shift of digitalizing texts, books, pictures, and other forms of media, there has been a race to make information easier to access and faster to search, despite how information was once gathered in the past. In my opinion, as the amount of content becoming digitalize increases; the less appreciation people will have for literary history. For instance, in the past, many famous authors wrote diaries on diaries, with most available in exhibitions, Emory’s MARBL collection, etc. However, as more and more people move away from writing by hand to typing online, that sense of “identity” is being lost. In my opinion, there is a rising concern about preservation of content over time. Even though it is ‘easier’ to access knowledge to just about anything on your fingertips, it is harder to find that emotion and one’s identity behind a uniform text. Of course the current/future issue of online fraud and validity of one’s online signature is another can of worms to talk about…

What would you appreciate more- Darwin’s handwritten diary or Darwin’s diary in Times New Roman font, size 12?