From Amazon.co.uk
What's up, doc? Information scientist David M Levy wants us to look at the documents that fill our lives, and his book
Scrolling Forward is a thoughtful reflection on their near-omnipresence. Levy has the perfect resumé for this job--after getting his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1981, he moved to England to pursue the study of calligraphy and bookbinding. His love of books shows in his writing, which is rich with references and anecdotes from Walt Whitman to Woody Allen.
Drawing on examples as disparate as grocery store receipts, greeting cards, identity papers and (of course) e-mail, Levy finds the common threads binding them together and explores how and why we use them in daily life. He looks at digitisation closely, considering how speed, ease of editing, and potentially perfect copying changes our traditional considerations of documentation. Though he insists that he's looking at the present, not speculating about the future, it's hard to see how to avoid looking ahead after reading Scrolling Forward. --Rob Lightner
From Publishers Weekly
Levy's book may not give documents the same cachet that Simon Winchester's The Map That Changed the World gave to maps, but readers will never look at a deli receipt in the same way after finishing this gripping discussion of written forms. With digital media acquiring an increasingly important place in communicating news and ideas, Levy looks at what the continuing transition from print to digital means at both practical and symbolic levels. The Internet and other electronic publishing platforms now deliver information faster than at any time in history, but tend to lose the depth of the printed page, Levy argues. And while there are good reasons to receive certain types of information quickly, there are also good reasons to read an entire printed book at one's own pace. Levy, who has a Ph.D. in computer science as well as a degree in calligraphy and bookbinding, maintains that one isn't necessarily a Luddite because he or she still prefers to read information on the printed page. To help support his position, Levy devotes one chapter to explaining why he prefers reading Leaves of Grass between covers to reading it on an e-book. Still, digital delivery of information has its merits, and striking the right balance between print and digital works is something that needs to be worked out in the years ahead. Although Levy does not come to any striking conclusions, his assessment of how documents work and what they say about our culture and values is a worthy one.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
