APPSTART

Extract from a post on TOC on books as experiences and the ever-increasing need for “unlibraries.”
August 17, 2010

A good book at bedtime helps a child to wind down, to float away into their imaginations and from there, drift off to sleep. Reading books together help parent and child to bond, to relax, to share. In contast TV and computer games have traditionally been thought of as winding children up, cutting them off from their inner selves and intimate relationships. Isolated? Alienated?

And that may be a crass generalization, but now that we can find stories on mobiles as well as on pages, we realise that a book isn’t an object at all but an experience. Meanwhile the mainstream literary community has been so fixated on defending paper books, they’ve failed to find other ways to define what they most want to preserve about our literary culture….

Read the rest HERE

Digital focus: looking forward

This is an extract from The Bookseller magazine’s Digital Focus section, guest edited by Chris Meade and if:book, 8th October 2009
In the digital age the book can no longer be defined as a stack of paper glued together at the side—it’s a unit of culture, a container of ideas that requires a certain kind of attention from its consumer. Reading on iPods and e-readers reminds us that however we receive it, fiction happens in our imaginations, the book is a souvenir of that experience.

DREAMING LIBRARIES

Article on the Unlibrary and the future of the libraries, Feb 2011

Public Libraries in the UK are under serious threat. Every media conversation on the need to make tough choices about cuts to public services seems to begin with the line, “For instance, libraries…” Somehow the big question isn’t how to wreak revenge on the financial sector, but whether society can afford those buildings full of books in these cash-strapped, banker-stuffed days…

Read more HERE

WIRED UK, Launch Edition, April 2009

“In another world, William Blake could well have been a blogger. Taking its cue from his innate distrust of systems and their limitations, the literary think-tank if:book is exploding the confines of print to create a “netbook” based around the works of the poet. Contributions come in many forms from original poetry to video pieces, as the project aims to emulate Blake’s own profound spirit of innovation. Track its progress at www.songsofimaginationanddigitisation.net

Guardian, Education Show Special, March 2010

“Chris Meade, co-director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, a “think-and-do tank” that explores reading in the digital age, argues that it is essential for teachers to feel confident about using new tools and building them into their lessons. For example, he sees the web as a natural home for poetry. “You can watch live performance and see the words at the right pace and in a form that helps you focus on them,” he says. “Young people are focused on screen culture. The objects they desire to have are devices that work electronically. Surely what is important is to put the literature that matters on those devices.” Full article HERE

IMAGINATION AND DIGITISATION – article by Chris Meade
from The Bookseller, LBF edition, April 2009

Will it be the Kindle or the Sony Reader or the iRex or the iTouch or the iWash (that’s the one you can read in the bath) which catches on as the reading device of the future? A far more interesting question is what will we be reading on it.

Secondary English – Imagine that
Classroom | Published in TES Magazine on 7 November, 2008 |
By: Jo Klaces

Move away from conventional essay writing and dare to try something new, says Jo Klaces
My Year 8 class was bored. The children had done myths, dabbled in poetry and toyed with Shakespeare. They were bright and sparky, but undoubtedly keener on MSN and Facebook than writing essays. We wanted to tap into this enthusiasm for talking about themselves in cyberspace and channel it into a new sort of public document – an ebook about being a lost 12-year-old in a city.