History Of The Book

12-17-96

James L. W. West III, Distinguished Professor of English
Director, Center for the History of the Book
The Pennsylvania State University
(814) 865-0495

These days, everyone seems to be scrambling to find new electronic venues for the printed word -- on-line versions of newspapers and magazines, encyclopedias on CD-ROMS, World Wide Web "home pages," and so on. And yet, the book is still great technology, and seems likely to remain so for quite some time.

"The book is one of the most marvelous inventions of man," says James L.W. West III, director of Penn State's Center for the History of the Book. "It's portable. It's relatively cheap. It holds a great amount of information. It's very easy to use and get around in, if it's properly printed and outfitted with tables of contents and chapter headings and indexes and things of that sort. And finally, it doesn't depend on any other technology or source of power. All you need is the physical object in your hands."

For those reasons and others, West believes that books are not about to pass off the scene any time soon.

"The book as we know it is probably indestructible," he says. "That is to say, it is almost as well adapted to human civilization as the wheel. It is a convenient, easily portable, easily consulted repository of information. There's really nothing else that matches it."

West is the author of a forthcoming Random House biography of novelist William Styron and the general editor of a multi-volume edition of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald being published by Cambridge University Press. West is also general editor of the Center's book series, to be published by Penn State Press.

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Contact: Alan Janesch or Christy Rambeau at (814) 865-7517 (office).