Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age - Softcover

Levy, David M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 161145221X ISBN 13: 9781611452211

Publisher: Arcade, 2011

Synopsis

Scrolling Forward takes a common, everyday object--the document--and illuminates what it reveals about us, both in the past and as we move into the digital age.

About this title

Review

What's up, doc? Information scientist David M. Levy wants us to look at the documents that fill our lives, and his book Scrolling Forward is a thoughtful reflection on their near-omnipresence. Levy has the perfect résumé for this job--after getting his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1981, he took off for England to pursue the study of calligraphy and bookbinding. His love of books shows in his writing, which is rich with references and anecdotes from Walt Whitman to Woody Allen.

Drawing on examples as disparate as grocery store receipts, greeting cards, identity papers, and (of course) e-mail, Levy finds the common threads binding them together and explores how and why we use them in daily life. He looks at digitization closely, considering how speed, ease of editing, and potentially perfect copying changes our traditional considerations of documentation. Though he insists that he's looking at the present, not speculating about the future, it's hard to see how to avoid looking ahead after reading Scrolling Forward. --Rob Lightner

About the Author

David M. Levy has a PhD in computer science from Stanford University as well a diploma in calligraphy and bookbinding. He was a researcher at Xerox and is currently a professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. He is also the author of Mindful Tech. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Edition details

• Publisher: Arcade
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 161145221X
• ISBN 13: 9781611452211
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240