Books are downloadable. Ideas are not downloadable. You have to read to get new ideas. As books increasingly become non-objects in their e-form, it becomes even more important to have a special relationship between the reader and the book, both being bearer of ideas. So how to (re-)define our relationship with books?
Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO (image UNESCO), triggered me to write this post. On the 23rd April 2011, on World Book and Copyright Day, she wrote: ‘Books are both object and idea. Tangible in form, intangible in content, they express the mind of an author and find meaning in the imagination of readers.’ I immediately liked these two sentences, but as I read closer, they were not as enlightening as they seemed. Books in fact increasingly are non-physical-objects, they come to us in their digitalized form of downloadable e-books. And they are not intangible in content; readers attach their interpretation and do this on purpose and not coincidentally. They comment on content, and content nowadays is very fluid and transportable. So it’s appropriate to start thinking about books being non-objects and tangible in content.
Viewing content as tangible, does in fact empower the reader. It’s exciting to see how reading develops and what readers do. I observe two tendencies here, the first dealing with reading techniques, the second with reading content.
Scrol, scan and skim: how reading becomes info processing
Most online reading is about fast info-seeking. You do not read a website, you scan or skim it. Scanning and skimming are well known reading techniques. Skimming is to read quickly in order to get a rough idea of what a text is about. You do not pay attention to every word. Your eyes scroll quickly through. Scanning is to read in order to find specific information. When scanning, you have a specific goal in mind. You read knowing what you are looking for.
Skimming and scanning are highly efficient ways of dealing with info overload. The reader turns into a fast infoseeker and infoprocessor. In the enormous ocean of info these certainly are valuable qualities. You’re surfing and travelling in a wide world, but where to? You may not want to become ‘the tool of your tools‘ (Thoreau*). It’s like driving a car really. You do an awful lot of things at the same time and this works fantastic, you are speeding up and getting ahead. Until you realize you don’t know where you are going to and you may not want to be driving a car, but rather do something else.
How to read content: the inner discovery
One cannot read a book without inner participation, bringing in something of yourself. In Books and You, W. Somerset Maugham* emphasized ‘involved reading’. You must be interested in human relationships, you must possess some fantasy. When you do involved reading, a book will last. This type of reading is about reading every word, and about discovery. You don’t know what to discover. You may discover something completely new, different from what others discover.
‘We must protect them’, wrote UNESCO-Director-Gernal Irina Bokova. ‘Books are pillars for free and open societies.’ The best way to protect books is to read and discuss them. It’s not about downloading e-copies, or about scrolling, but about involved reading and sharing ideas. This has no specific physical or technical form, it’s just the You in ‘Books and You’.
* D.H. Thoreau 1854. Walden: or Life in the Woods. Boston: Tickner and Fields. (Dover Publications 1995) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205
* W. Somerset Maugham 1940; 2006. Books and You. Eine kleine persönliche Geschichte der Weltliteratur. Zürich: Diogenes. Essays published in: Saturday Evening Post, 1940. http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/the_classic_books_of_america.pdf
Social Research&Journalism 
In the first place: I don’t think that you get new ideas only through reading. Not even only through language. There are many people that get ideas through images and pictures. Think about the learning of young children. They see someone do something and they reproduce it. From this action they discover and play and learn other possibilities and get to (original) ideas.
But considering getting new idea’s through written information, there are several ways:
1. Looking for information. You know what you are looking for. In an overload of information (on the internet, or in books about specific subjects like a butterfly guide or a dictionary) it is not likely to find new idea’s. But it is possible if you let yourself get distracted and jump from one subject to another. This information is without a schedule of knowledge, they are not tangible in content. Fragmented information can be misleading.
2. Looking for ideas. You have to understand the way fragments of knowledge are connected. A book is needed (or the outlines of this knowledge in the mind). A basic schedule is enough, detailed facts can be found on the internet (or in specialized books) if you know what you are looking for. Mostly you will find new knowledge this way and not ideas.
3. Involved reading. Ideas are wrapped up in a novel, diary, theory or (web)log. A close reading and sometimes detailed study is needed to get to inner discovery. The reader might need to share his discoveries with others, partly because he wants to check what he found (Did I read this correct? Did you get to the same conclusions, idea’s? What did you discover?) and partly because discussion sharpens the mind and makes the reading more intense. This way a book can be inspiring and can be a step in personal development.
Most important is the ability to concentrate on the text or on this one subject. Concentrated reading is not possible with distraction around the reader. Time, a quiet environment and freedom of thought are necessary. This is not always available in our modern society, especially not with an overflow of information on the internet, that makes us speedy scanners instead of readers.
Renske Koornstra
Hello Renske,
Thank you Renske, yes you are right, images are very important. I sometimes tend to narrowfocus on my word-reduced-activities too much. Good to have people who tear me out of the narrow word-caves! 😉
You wrote ‘Most important is the ability to concentrate on the text or on this one subject. Concentrated reading is not possible with distraction around the reader. Time, a quiet environment and freedom of thought are necessary. This is not always available in our modern society’
I tend to agree with you. But I also see that we – and certainly digital natives – are developing into a ‘Multi-task Sapiens’. The Multi-Tasker is used to doing different things at the same time. ‘The Multi’ is increasing: we do not only drive (which involves knowing the rules, anticipating on other traffic, handling the machine), but ALSO listen to music, news, a book AND make a phone call AND act and plan according to our Navigator. To read you must be – watch out, I now switch to German because it sounds great – an EinzelTasker, the ‘Einzel-Task-Sapiens’. You need to concentrate on one thing. The word ‘Einzel’ also belongs to ‘Einzelkämpfer’, a great word as well, I think it’s the German social-collective spirit (which I judge positively) that does give the word its unique flavour.
The Einzeltasking is going to be more difficult. You need tricks, e.g. two machines. I write my books on a notebook without Internetconnection. This really helps to speed up and develop your own thoughts. I’m sometimes worried about Multitask-people who can’t set priorities. They are lived by their surroundings, don’t have an own agenda and with the overflow of info you just get lost. I liked your remark about ‘freedom of thought’, this seems essential. Can one develop independent thoughts when one only follows the flow?