Wiki – Laboratoire Ex situ / René Audet

Référence : PIPER, Andrew, Book Was There - Reading in Electronic Times, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2012, 208 p.

Synthèse : L’ouvrage est une histoire de l’interaction entre l’homme et le livre, particulièrement focalisé sur la question des usages de lecture. Il se base sur l’usage passé pour prévoir le futur du livre en contexte numérique.

Mots-clés : Interaction, History of Reading.

Langue : Anglais.

Format : Papier.

Description existante : « (…) Book Was There is Piper’s surprising and always entertaining essay on reading in an e-reader world. Much ink has been spilled lamenting or championing the decline of printed books, but Piper shows that the rich history of reading itself offers unexpected clues to what lies in store for books, print or digital. From medieval manuscript books to today’s playable media and interactive urban fictions, Piper explores the manifold ways that physical media have shaped how we read, while also observing his own children as they face the struggles and triumphs of learning to read. In doing so, he uncovers the intimate connections we develop with our reading materials—how we hold them, look at them, share them, play with them, and even where we read them—and shows how reading is interwoven with our experiences in life. Piper reveals that reading’s many identities, past and present, on page and on screen, are the key to helping us understand the kind of reading we care about and how new technologies will—and will not—change old habits. Contending that our experience of reading belies naive generalizations about the future of books, Book Was There is an elegantly argued and thoroughly up-to-date tribute to the endurance of books in our ever-evolving digital world. », consulté sur http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo12789556.html, le 21 novembre 2016.

Compte rendu existant : STEWART, Garrett, « At last, not an elegy for the book, whose reported death as material object has been greatly exaggerated, but the retooling of the computer screen itself as a rearview mirror on the perennial nature – and mystery – of reading. As down to earth as it is up to the minute, this is the book on bookishness we've needed, dispatched with unpedantic ease and brio, fast, aphoristic, and repeatedly eye-opening. Andrew Piper has plumbed the history of reading and produced a true page-turner on the legacy and fate of the page. Learned and witty throughout, Book Was There instructs in the delights of reading, on screen as well as off, by reproducing them anew in every phase of its meditation. », consulté sur http://piperlab.mcgill.ca/bookwasthere.html, le 21 novembre 2016.