Stapleton Branch, New York Public Library, 2013. Photo © copyright by A. D. Coleman.
This series of posts from mid-2013 sprang from the opening of my substantially reconfigured local branch of the New York Public Library, whose makeover transformed it from archetypal neighborhood print-centric space to fully wired media environment, with all the pros and cons thereof.
That led me to weighing the benefits against the losses resulting from the ongoing transition from printed to digital formats for books, periodicals, and other textual and visual materials. The links below will take you to my responses, the most recent first. I suggest starting with the earliest post and working your way forward from there.
- There Will Be Ink 5 (September 8, 2013): In which I prophesize a healthy future for visual books (including photography books) in digital formats.
- There Will Be Ink 4 (August 14, 2013): In which I visit the annual BookExpo America (BEA) at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, focusing my attention on its vendors of digital & electronic goods and services.
- There Will Be Ink 3 (August 1, 2013): In which I explore the social and political ramifications of literacy and books, using the recent example of Malala Yousafzai, and acknowledge the benefits of digitized books.
- There Will Be Ink 2 (July 18, 2013): In which I contemplate the jeremiad Whither the Postmodern Library?: Libraries, Technology, and Education in the Information Age by librarian William H. Wisner, which mourns the shift from analog to digital repository.
- There Will Be Ink 1 (July 12, 2013): In which I sketch my own relationship to the public library from childhood on, starting with the Manhattan branch on West 13th St. (now gone) and the branch in my Staten Island neighborhood.
