Not for the first time in the past 5 years I found myself sorting through an immense collection of books. Every time I have done this I feel I am somehow facing the issues of print in a more real way than in some article in a design mag/newspaper/blog written by someone a bit like myself trying to explain how their insight is the route to your understanding of where we are now with print, digital, etc, ad nauseum.
As physical, cultural artefacts these books clearly had very little similarity to whatever their digital equivalents are. As objects that take up space in your home I have to admit I have started to have mixed feelings about. Although I still fetishise them for all the reasons we are familiar with I have really started to become fatigued with the chaff, the throw away books – the ones that were waiting for the e-readers to come and help tidy them away whilst we still get to enjoy them for what they are.
A long time ago I noticed a that, for me at least, a collection of books acts as a collection reminders of all sorts of things: as I glance across my own shelves a series of memories are triggered – semantic, episodic, explicit. It is this quality that I am not sure I have seen discussed yet maybe it’s these qualities that we are alluding to when we lament the changes in our life with print – or when we save a favourite in an app. When we can only access them through the Flanerian Woodcut (google it – you will see what I mean) window of our screens. These digital artefacts cannot generate the same quality or quantity of feelings – partly due to the repetitious experience of accessing them (move, tap, click, scroll).
What is it we can take from this in design today? OS culture explains how their products replicate that experience but we know that operating a tablet or computer is not like moving amongst the things you like in our homes. Just analogous.
So what is it that a shelf of books still has? To reverse the analogy; I think they might be an immense, personalised interface, beautiful, messy desktops full of ideas and memories that are unique to you.. And it doesn’t need to be plugged in. Unique. Personalised. Innovative.
ideas/forms/functions 