02 Feb, 2007
Future of Books – Google ‘Unbound’ Conference
Posted by: Jeff VanDrimmelen In: General| Instructional Technology| Social Web
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Many of my recent posts (Human Education Network, ECAR, Webpage Documents, Trailfire) focus on the future of education and the internet’s role in that. Yesterday Inside Google Book Search posted an short article about a conference they recently had in New York about the future of the book. As part of their post they posted a video montage of the event.
The conference, appropriately titled ‘Unbound,’ focused on the future of books. Here are a couple of quotes.
Presumably talking about a website centered around a book one presenter said:
“The website should be interactive. It should be forum, there should be author talks, there should be talks the author can participate in.”
Another presenter said the following about the power of social networking.
“Social activity around my work is absolutely the most important thing that can happen for it. To have someone turn to someone else and say: ‘I read this book, I love it, you must read it.’ Boy, nothing sells books like that.”
Probably the most important quote comes from David Worlock, Chairman of EPS.
“The future of the book is secure. It’s what we do it, how we promote it, how we develop it, and how we put new layers of meaning around it in a digital context which becomes extremely important.
I post this all just to re-emphasize the importance of the internet. The internet will provide a sphere where we can add these new layers of social networking, collaboration, and a myriad of other new layers that haven’t even been thought of yet.
I applaud Google once again because they are ahead of the learning curve. Last week I saw some features on their Google book search that is already potentially changing the way we learn from books. I look forward to more developments in the future!
