Discussion of Bolter Ch 5-6

From WRIT-2510 Spring 2007 Wiki

Things to Think About

What is Bolter's argument in each of these chapters? How do these arguments support or complicate the arguments he makes earlier in the text? Yes, this means you might have to go back to those initial chapters and figure out what exactly is he arguing in those chapters!

You might want to take a stab at articulating his argument from each of the chapters here on the wiki. You can work collaboratively to come up with what you think his main points are.

How does Bolter differentiate between an encyclopedia and a library?

How does what he have to say affect how you think about and conduct research?

Think about the history of our very own Vorhese building (It was once a church, a library, and now it has become a computer center. How does that narrative figure into the history of the book (and things book-related) that Bolter tells?

Things to Write About

Bolter makes a distinction between libraries and encyclopedias: "A library amasses books, while an encyclopedia condeses them" (81). How do electronic encyclopedias complicate or collapse that distinction?

Bolter notes how encyclopedias evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries (82), and remarks that they became more concerned with "provid[ing] information on subjects of popular interest" than they were with "demonstrat[ing] the interrelations of all subjects" (83). Why is this distinction such an important one, and how does it affect the way encyclopedias are produced?

How might this shift be related to our earlier class discussion about the difference between films and books?

What does Bolter mean when he talks about "textual overload" and how do new technologies both contribute to and mitigate against this trend (85)?

What does Bolter mean when he conceptualizes the library as a "writing space" (91) and how does that relate to our own library space? Why do you think the Center for Communication Practices is housed there, and how might that complicate your or Bolter's notion of the library as writing space?

What does remediation mean for the encyclopedia? Bolter talks about the electronic encyclopedia, and you should discuss Wikipedia complicates his understanding of the new remediated form?

How have Google and Wikipedia changed what we think of as research?