The Great Digitization and the Quest to Know Everything

by Lucien X. Polastron

Examines the pitfalls, perils, and promises offered by the digitization of books - Reveals the danger digitized books pose to the very idea of "free" reading - Poses the questions society should be asking itself before heedlessly embracing this brave new world The digitization of books is an immense blessing for the exchange and diffusion of knowledge, enabling access in even the most remote locations. Yet this new technology has awakened perils as dangerous as those that reduced libraries to ashes in ancient Alexandria and modern Nazi Germany. The very force that makes it possible for books to reach a global audience also has the power to hold them hostage and even destroy their integrity in a manner that is unprecedented. Books on Fire author Lucien Polastron points out that the dematerialization of knowledge raises new legal challenges about the quality and authenticity of information. Attempts to create a virtual library are changing the very nature of reading, which has been marked by the act of physically holding and moving forward through an author's work rather than viewing a series of sound bite length snippets. The transfer of the traditional paper book into a searchable entity on the computer represents a revolution even more dramatic than the one triggered by Gutenberg's printing press. This revolution is akin to the replacement of the scroll by the codex, which likewise changed the way humans could receive information and structure their thoughts. Yet despite its broad easy access, the profiteers of this new commercial domain may render the very idea of "free" reading obsolete. Polastron poses questions others are ignoring in a headlong rush to embrace what is still a very ambiguous future.

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 2006

About the author

- Born in 1944 from Gascony families.
- Classical studies and first articles published (about medieval architecture, and after spending days in research libraries).
- Deputy chief editor at Maisons d’hier et d’aujourd’hui monthly magazine in 1966.
- Early in the seventies, works for modern art and architecture press.
- First trip to China in 1976, learns Chinese and starts reporting about Chinese cultural history then Japan.
- Begins practicing Chinese calligraphy and devotes himself to studying paper workmanship in Asia. Starts writing a huge history of paper.
- 1992: the destruction of the National Library in Sarajevo triggers his systematic research into destruction of libraries as he had already encountered several such events while working on paper history.
- End of the nineties: to complete his knowledge begins visiting Middle-East, mainly Egypt, starts learning Arabic, classical, colloquial, and calligraphy.
- 2003: 55th stay in China, 21st in Japan, 8th in Alexandria. Lives and works in Normandy.