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Institute for the Future of the Book

Is there a future for books?

The printed page is giving way to the networked screen. The Institute for the Future of the Book seeks to chronicle this shift, and impact its development in a positive direction.

For the past five hundred years, humans have used print — the book and its various page-based cousins — to move ideas across time and space. Radio, cinema and television emerged in the last century and now, with the advent of computers, we are combining media to forge new forms of expression. The word "book" is used broadly, even metaphorically, to talk about what has come before — and what might come next.

One major consequence of the shift to digital is the addition of graphical, audio, and video elements to the written word. More profound, however, is the book's reinvention in a networked environment. Unlike the printed book, the networked book is not bound by time or space. It is an evolving entity within an ecology of readers, authors and texts. Unlike the printed book, the networked book is never finished: it is always a work in progress.

As such, the Institute is concerned with the surrounding forces that will shape the network environment and the conditions of culture: network neutrality, copyright and privacy. A free, neutral network, a progressive intellectual property system, and robust safeguards for privacy are essential conditions for an enlightened digital age.

For discourse to thrive in the digital age, tools are needed that allow ordinary, non-technical people to assemble complex, elegant and durable electronic documents without having to master overly complicated applications or seek the help of programmers. The Institute is dedicated to building such tools and conducts experiments with existing tools and technologies, exploring their potential and testing their limits.

At the Institute's website you will find all the recent and current projects, plus if:book, a daily blog covering a wide range of topics, all in some way fitting into the techno-cultural puzzle that is the future of reading and writing.

To find out the future of the book click View button below.

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At a recent lecture given by long time subversive artists Gilbert and George, there was a fantastic point made which highlighted the absurdity of institutionalised religion and the anomalous status it's given in today's society.

They said something along the lines of....

"Imagine if a biscuit company was able to sell itself the way the church does. The biscuit company would probably be able to do a lot better if it was able to offer eternal life (in addition to biscuits) as a reward for your money"

Now the idea also works in reverse.

Imagine if there was a company that didn't pay tax, had little or no oversight from the state legal system, was found to be fingering children- had tried to hide it- their leader and the leader's brother were both implicated and they still refused to open themselves up to public scrutiny.

You probably wouldn't buy their biscuits would you.

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4 mar

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Why has homepage started running so many nameless 100 word eds? Names are good for intellectual continuity, honesty and non-hypocrisy. - Terry McGee

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Re: Bale de Rua

We thought the Bale de Rua was aweful. Choreography was terrible - set design, music and costumes were lacklustre. The dancers however were very athletic and graceful. - Jules

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Re: In Praise of Mediocrity

I just wonder who decides if what ever you chose to do in life, is mediocre or not. Sounds like with standards like yours, this article with its poor structure and soap box appeal may also be considered by many as, in-fact, mediocre. - Khedra

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Re: The Assassins of Langley

Yes, Mr. Neville. Odious, heinous assassins sold body and soul to Luciferian entities who pull the strings (the last of them, I want to believe) from the shadows. Philip Aggeee and John Stockwell portrayed them quite well. They are NOT heroes, nor are the gangbangers of East Los Angeles who spray grafitti in Iraq, where they most certainly train for urban warfare on our streets. Good riddance to them all!

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Re: Hairy Legs: A Study of Female Art, Feminism and Femininity

 Looking forward to more of her articles. Hope she does plenty of Art Theory at SCA. Barbara Kruger and Judy Chicago are certainly powerful artists and it would be interesting to see what they are doing now.

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A hero's welcome for the famous Iraqi shoe thrower

Terrorist! Please do your research first before writing such dangerous things, we was insulting Bush by throwing the shoe as he was disgraced with him, not trying to topple the largest super power in the world by throwing a shoe. I cant believe you have put those words up. Ashamed

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Re: How to Report the News

Having worked as a TV news reporter I found Charlie's piece very amusing - some of us have long believed reporting like this is a rubbish way to do things! But even if a journalist wants to tell stories in a more authentic and engaging way, the constraints of the so-called "house style" in many news organisations make it difficult to achieve. What's needed is a massive culture shift and a complete re-think of what we understand quality broadcast news reporting is. And guess what? That's exactly what's happening, though you'd never believe it from what we're still mostly seeing on TV. Anyway, the new digital technologies, and shake up of "old school/old mainstream" journalism means new platforms and styles of "news" storytelling can now emerge. Let's hope fresh and appropriate ways of funding appear too, so we can kill off this dreadful formulaic reporting and delivery, and clear the way for more natural and interesting ways to treat stories and content.

Much love, Ian Aspin.
www.twitter.com/ianaspin

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Re: Pushing 60 With Pot

You're pushing 60, well I'm pushing 70 and still having to scrounge around for my pot. It's tragic that when I first came to Australia it was $30 an ounce, and now I have to pay nearly $350 - Peter

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Re: Textbook publishers dream of the tablet

Why can't this just be a program for PC and Windows? Why do they have to make us buy more hardware that's just going to disappoint? - Tyler J. Wilson

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Re: Killing Indian Students: Australia's Favourite New Sport!- by Sean Maguire

How about the indian guy who slashed his wife's throat, is still australia to blame for?..may be , for accenpting them to move over!I am an immigrant myself but I love this country, there is no perfect place on Earth but australia is one of the best! - Michael

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This entire fiasco is an incredible over reaction. Australia is an easy target. Why? because we are honest, transperant and we talk about our failings. Is there aggression and iolence in Australia? Sure, like any country. But we face it head on and we work to eliminate it. What about the stories of the 100’s of thousands of Indian workers who are treated as slaves in the middle east and nobody says anything? What about the fact that India still has entrenched pedophilia in terms of child brides? What about the crushing poverty embraced by more than 60% of the Indian people while this nation runs around building nuclear warheads? A storm in a teacup, an over reaction, and a diversion from some the really bad issues facing India. What is really happening here is that students are being unnecessarily frightened. meaning they will miss out on what could be the opportunity of their lifetime. - Daryl
 
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I couldn't agree with Sean Maguire's article more on the recent Indian attacks. For all those who like the pretend the attacks are merely based on coincidence, try to imagine how we would react if the boot were on the other foot and an uncharacteristic number of Australia's had been murdered in India. Would you push for a travel ban? Would you be scared for your children in a seemingly hostile environment so many miles away?  - Kara Jensen-Mackinnon

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