Encyclopedia Britannica goes Digital

Last week NPR reported on the decision by the publishers of Encyclopedia Britannica to shift from print-and-digital to an all-digital format. According to the report, this will be the first time in 244 years that the Encyclopedia will not be available in print form.

The NPR story quotes from a New York Times article, which clearly delineates the Encyclopedia Britannica as one of America's iconic books:

In the 1950s and 1960s, a set of encyclopedias on the bookshelf was akin to a station wagon in the garage or a black-and-white Zenith in the den, an object coveted not only for its usefulness but as a goalpost for an aspirational middle class. The books were often a financial stretch, with many families paying for their encyclopedias in monthly installments.

Indeed, I remember how fiercely proud my late mother was of our set of the Britannica. For her, it was a mark of our intellectual credibility. We may have been poor, but we were educated--and owning a set of the Britannica (and not just relying on the local library) was a tangible marker of that status.

My mother passed away in 2009, and being her only child, the task fell to me to sift through her possessions. I made the decision to part with the set of Encyclopedia Britannica, now more than thirty years out of date. There have been many days, however, when I have second-guessed that decision. Should I have kept them? Not for what they contained, but for what they meant, to my mother, and to me, all those years.

To me, there is no better criteria for the iconic status of a book (or set of books) than this: that you would be willing to make space in your life for them for no other reason than their sentimental value; not even for what they meant to me, but for what they meant to somebody else.

SCRIPT at EIR

This SCRIPT panel will take place at the AAR's EIR meeting in Waterloo, ON:
May 4, 4:00-6:00

Panel: The Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts (SCRIPT)

Room: REN 1404

• David Dault, Christian Brothers University: "On a Controlled Bibliographic Vocabulary for SCRIPT and its Related Organizations: A Response to Deirdre Stam"
• James W. Watts, Syracuse University: "Relic Books"
• Karl Ivan Solibakke, Syracuse University: "Identity, Mimesis and Script: Walter Benjamin's Mimetic Function Revisited"

SCRIPT at SECSOR

This SCRIPT-themed session took place at the SECSOR meeting in Atlanta on March 4, 2012:
Theme: Theology of the Book
Steven R. Harmon, Gardner-Webb School of Divinity, presiding

• David Dault, Christian Brothers University: "‘This way of living is different from communism because...’: The Ideological Control of Scriptural Interpretations of Acts 4 in the Editorial Rhetorics of Popular Study Bibles"
• Dorina Miller Parmenter, Spalding University: "Portraits of America’s Iconic Book
• Kelly West Figueroa-Ray, University of Virginia: "Twisted Scriptural Tokens: The Bible According to Jerry Falwell"

Afghan protests over accidental Qur'an burning

The accidental burning of Qur'an's by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan have provoked two days of violent protest so far and led to U.S. bases and offices being locked down for security. Scripture desecrations, including Qur'ans, has been a frequent subject of commentary on this blog as well as the topic of my 2009 online case study.

Brian Dettmer's work, again

Jim Watts noted an exhibit by Brian Dettmer a few years ago. Dettmer seems to be continuing his book art work in some fascinating ways, as see in the images here.

Dettmer is also noted in the following book, which I don't think this has been noted in these pages, but this looks worth checking out (especially considering the subtitle):

Book Art: Iconic Sculptures and Installations Made from Books

Wrapping Torah Scroll around Preacher

A remarkable video shows a Messianic Jewish rabbi and charismatic preacher, Ralph Messer, wrapping Bishop Eddie Long in a Torah scroll as a ritual of enthronement and new birth:



The video prompted a storm of controversy. Messianic Jews have repudiated Messer, and Bishop Long has apologized. But Messer has done such things before, as this video proves:

Aside from being ritually unprecedented in either Judaism or Christianity, Messer’s explanation of the ceremony is full of falsehoods. He claims that the Torah was a “constitution of God” given to every ancient Israelite king and wrapped around the king at his inauguration. There are no such accounts in the Bible. This is the first I’ve ever heard of a Torah scroll being wrapped around anyone. Messer also recounts some Jewish practices accurately, such as using a pointer so as not to touch the scroll with bare hands, while simultaneously breaking that practice himself.  Brent Strawn of Emory University did a good job of pointing out the mistakes and problems on CNN.

Messer’s actions at New Birth Baptist Church are interesting both as an example of how ritual innovation gets justified and as an example of the ritual use of an iconic book. Ritual innovation is usually disguised as ritual restoration: rather than starting new practices, an old practice is being revived. So Messer claims to be reproducing an ancient Jewish royal. His attempt differs from many other ritual innovations only in how obviously implausible they are.

Messer’s actions are also a remarkable example of the common practice of manipulating an iconic book to invoke its authority while ignoring, even contradicting, its contents. Ritualizing the iconic dimensions of texts typically functions to convey legitimacy to the people manipulating or receiving them. That’s exactly what Messer does for Bishop Long: by wrapping the Torah around Bishop Long, he proclaims his coronation and his “new birth”—claiming the legitimacy of the scripture for a religious leader embattled by scandal.

(My thanks for Bradford Anderson for bringing this to my attention.)

Fantastic Flying Books

This fantasy of living books has been nominated for an Oscar this year UPDATE (2/26/12): It won the Oscar!

Occupy Rose Parade Constitutions

At the end of this year's Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California, Occupy protestors carried two giant replicas of the U.S. Constitution. The first beings "We the People," as usual, while the second started with "We the Corporations." Both reproduce its easily recognized iconic form as a parchment manuscript. (The picture appears in the Los Angeles Times, 1/2/2012.)

Copying the Whole KJV

The Wall Street Journal reports the story of a man who, though in poor health, is hand-copying the entire King James Bible. He has completed about three-quarters of the text and hopes to finish in 2012.

Intellectual curiosity, rather than religious fervor, led Patterson to the project. The idea came out of a conversation with his partner of 20 years, who died of a liver disorder in February 2010. A Muslim who owned a collection of handwritten Korans, he suggested that Patterson transcribe the Bible. The concept instantly appealed.

But he plans to donate the finished set of volumes to his church in Spencertown, New York. And a local artist has created a photographic journal and blog about his work.

The article cites an expert in Christian history on the rarity of such practices, citing the lack of a devotional manuscript tradition in modern Christianity. But I suspect that the practice is more common than we suspect, but poorly documented. Aside from well-publicized efforts like the calligraphed and illuminated St. Johns Bible using the NRSV text, the Missouri Springfield Journal reported in 2007 about a man who spent 40 years copying the KJV.

(One benefit of a blog like this is the ability to document such phenomena to get a better idea of how rare or common they are. If anyone has heard of other examples of modern Christians hand copying the BIble, please let us know!)

Heritage Librarians as "Ambassadors of the Book"

The University of Antwerp will host an international library conference on February 1-2, 2012, on the theme "Ambassadors of the book: Competences for heritage librarians." The conference website explains the goal:

It seems trivial, these days, to state that libraries have been challenged by recent technological, social and economic developments. On the other hand, these developments have not minimized the library’s mission as a memory institution, quite the contrary. Among the many roles that libraries will continue to play in the 21st century and beyond, their responsibility for the preservation of the written heritage is perhaps the one that is questioned least.

I am less optimistic that preservation remains widely acknowledged as a core service of libraries. Rhetoric about accessibility and digitization dominates discussions I've heard and read much more than memory preservation does. I think the organizers are right, though, that preservation remains the chief cultural role of libraries, especially research libraries. It is the one that corporate interests are least likely to replace.