I Read Where I Am: Exploring New Information Cultures

by Andrew Blauvelt (Contributor), Vito Campanelli, Sven Ehmann

When Guy Debord identified the image consumerism of "the society of the spectacle" in the 1960s, he could not have forecast that language would threaten to eclipse the image in the medium of personal technology, creating a world of ubiquitous legibility. Today, we read anytime and anywhere, on screens of all sizes; we read not only newspaper articles, but also databases, online archives, search engine results and navigational structures. We read while out on the street, at home or in the office, with a complete library to hand--but less and less we read a book at home on the couch. In other words, we are, or are becoming, a different kind of reader. I Read Where I Am contains visionary texts about the future of reading and the status of the word in the digital age from designers, philosophers, journalists and politicians, looking at both sides of the argument for printed and digital reading matter.

Genres: Design, Technology

264 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2011

Reviews

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cool I'm the first person to review this book.

So I shop a good amount and almost every saturday I go book shopping, a few weeks ago I was around downtown manhattan later than usual so I couldn't make it to the strand before closing so instead I went to st. marks bookstore, the thing about places like st marks isn't so much that they have tons of great independent fiction (they don't have more than the barnes and noble I work at) it's that they have some choice books that are sort of out there things that you don't run across other places and their right up front. I was going to buy some other book on new media, I just went through my phone and it doesn't look like I took a picture of it so who knows what it was. I've bought stuff on new media studies there before like Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary from their critical theory section. I bought this book because I thought it was beautiful, and it is the design is great, but would you expect any less from the graphic design museum. It reminds me a lot of the Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future but the perspective is a bit different these are people who are invested in images, in the internet, in new media not simply scientists that may or may not care, they all read very young. But it's a lot of great really short perspectives.

all the essays are here http://www.ireadwhereiam.com/ I believe if you'd like to take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow.

moving on, reading this I took pictures when I found something I really liked, I could look at these then talk about them, but what kind of new media review would that be?

[Chad Prevost · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, singular book which challenges a lot of our perceptions of publishing and writing to this day.

[Wes Hazard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely one of the most singular book designs that I’ve ever encountered. What they do here with the layout, indexes, and text effects is pretty damn cool. I guess that’s what you get when you ask a bunch of Dutch designers, writers and media theorists to collaborate on a book of short essays about the state & future of reading. Some of the more noteworthy features include the shading of each individual word to reflect its frequency of use vs. its uniqueness, a table of contents that lists only the page number of each essay and its first 140 characters, a word frequency index listing the page numbers where each individual instance of a word can be found, and an index of related or alluded to subjects that’s culled from Wikipedia. Fun Stuff.

As for the meat: this is collection of over 80 short reflections (each one conveniently prefaced with an estimated reading time - - rarely more than 2.5 minutes) about such issues as the impact of technology and digital consumption on reading, the validity of web surfing as “reading”, and the modern necessity of being able to effectively “read” ads & images. Most of the pieces are very optimistic about the continued relevance of reading & literacy, even if they’re practical about the inevitable technological developments that will affect them. The essays are brief & personal (sometimes very impressionistic or even offhand) affairs. Some I loved, some I disagreed with very much, many were, to be honest, fairly “meh”. I’d recommend at least perusing this on account of the innovative design, and if you’re deeply interested in the future of the practice of reading, I’d say go ahead and give it a gander, but it’s nothing truly profound or groundbreaking.

[Dario Ferrando · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are into publishing, reading methods, visual literacy, digital publishing, or in general into giving sense in what you read and process as information, YOU MUST read this book. Full of interesting points of view, that sparkle and start new conversations and theories on the future of reading and information.

[Akvile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really easy to read and understand kind of complicated topic for a beginner. Fundamental for those interested in reading, publishing and the transition between two worlds, such as print and digital media.

[ACRL]

Read by ACRL Member of the Week Zach Coble. Learn more about Zach on the .