Networked book 3

The Networked Book is Processed

The future book will be a networked book or a "processed book" as Joseph Esposito [4] calls it. To process a book, he says, is more than simply building links to it; processing also includes a modification of the act of creation, which tends to encourage the absorption of the book into a network of applications, including but not restricted to commentary. This "processing" creates iterations of the book: critiques, revisions and trajectories that accumulate around the original draft. The iterations of Wikipedia are a good example of this principle. The networked book, as a process-based knowledge machine incorporates the thinking process of multiple authors.

Processing the Networked Book

It is useful, in this case, to compare the processing of a networked book to the standard editorial procedures found in print culture. Both print books and networked books originate from an idea conceived by a senior editor or an author. However, the participatory framework of a networked book is articulated by a designer, and executed by a programmer, before the content is written or assembled, thus creating an open book structure. Paper-based books are turned over to the designer, production artist and printer after the content is finished, resulting in a closed book structure. The networked book is assembled, in whole or in part, by a community of authors according to the thesis imagined by the editor/author and within the space created by the designer and programmer.

The community of contributors acts as both author and reader, which is drastically different from the single-author print model wherein, reader is audience rather than co-creator. In a networked book, content is generated and revised by the community and the various iterations of the text are often saved and can be returned to and discussed. In a paper-based book, content is generally constructed by a single author and is revised under the supervision of an editor. The readers have no part in this process and the revisions are only examined and debated in special cases, and then usually by scholars or authors, not by the general readership. After the content has been generated by the community within the framework of the network book's thesis and architecture, the reader/editor implements strategies for marking out meaningful pathways through the material using search engines and visualization applications.

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