“You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi

The book has not, and will not, die. But it will shift forms. This is because a book is not wood pulp glued together or something that resides exclusively in leather clad coverings. The book is not the codex, for it has been the scroll, the manuscript, and the tablet far before it opened right to left (or left to right) in convenient sequential pagination. The codex, to be clear, has always been merely an avatar or a permutation of the book idea. The book is greater than the form it takes. The book is (or ought to be) defined as an object of boundaries, which is no doubt why books must always be “bound.”

At its most abstracted, the book is very much akin to the Saussurean sign. It is everything that it is not. It is this writing and not that writing, these maps not those charts, this writer not those writers, it is these ideas and not those ones. The book has always been defined by its aspiration to be discrete and differentiated from other objects, most importantly other books. This emphasizes the book’s boundaries (both conceptually and literally) as definitive of what the book is, or what it does/is about.

A book is bound, bounded, and bound up. It is made complete physically, complete in its arguments (discursive binding if you will), and complete in its existence as a discrete object in a world of objects/things. Because it is bounded in all of these ways, readers have learned to consume it in a certain way: they enter the book expecting that it is not a intellectual black hole from which there is not escape. They expect to move through it, as sojourners perhaps, or detectives on a case. The metaphors for reading always treat the book as a subject that somehow, somewhere has limits. And inventiveness and exploration within the limits define the pleasure of reading and writing as invention and play. Roland Barthes famously advocated for the re-invention of the “readerly” as a type of play activity. Like the playing fields of a sport, the limits of books are not to their detriment, but just the opposite: the boundaries beget a marked-off space of inquiry and play. Books are their own worlds and territories as we have celebrated for hundreds of years.

Now we have been incorrectly drawn into a great debate about books defined too narrowly. We have been warned of the death of books, by people who see books only as the codex, the woodpulp tome, the paperback novel. We have been led to see books as publishers see them. In the process, we have forgotten the “book idea” – the idea of binding a discourse or several discourses together, such that they become a bounded object.

People have not stopped writing. They may write differently and in new electronic environments, but they are still fundamentally attempting to produce the same sort of semi-permanent scribblings that form the “content,” which is to say, purpose of books. Born into electronic environments, “digital” writing proves flexible and fast. It can cross massive geographic gaps quickly, and can be manipulated/adjusted/truncated/distorted/improved with equal ease. Electronic writing seems to have no boundaries. It exists in a vast web of connections and discursive vectors. Movement is so easy between electronic texts that one can become lost in them, and can lose sight of the purpose or initiative. The readers of electronic/digital writing are accustomed to be sidetracked, misdirected, and lost. Electronic writing, in short, begs for binding. Not just to arrest and preserve digital content that can be easily lost, but also to chart a path through content. To curate and select and bind material together such that it becomes a new discrete object. Electronic writing, the loosest form of the book idea, can be given more defined edges.

Which is why the world needs Anthologize now. Anthologize, a new, FREE WordPress plugin, is fundamentally about binding that which has become unbound and unbounded: the shifting electronic content of the world wide web. Anthologize was created by a handful of scholars, librarians, and archivists who were gathered for just one week in Northern Virginia to develop a tool for work in the digital humanities (full disclosure here: I was one of the them).

It is not surprising that a publication tool that makes an intervention into the scattered world of digital writing should be the conclusion of such a gathering and such a fast-paced collaborative process. In fact, it is incredibly telling and significant that at this moment in history of literary, intellectual and cultural work, twelve humanists should motivated to build a thing they would call Anthologize. Motivated in equal parts by fears over digital decay (data loss), the need for light free and flexible book publishing interfaces, and the eternal need to actually curate and bind material together into anthologies, Anthologize must be read as a celebration and not a detournment of the book idea. Indeed, even while Anthologize promises new life to electronic writing, and progresses the coming age of the ebooks and ebook reader culture, Anthologize is fundamentally about binding. It is about allowing individuals to create their own boundaries and bindings, to delimit a world that has grown overcrowded with information. It is about marking out, if only for ourselves, the boundaries of what we know, want to know, and hope to know.

david plouffe, the campaign manager for obama 2008, just finished giving an hour and half speech at pomona college in claremont, california. he was described in the event’s “lecture bill” in the words of his former boss, now president, obama. “he is the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the … best political campaign, i think, in the history of United States.” that’s some pretty top-notch praise, from someone who should know. but let’s be honest for a moment, who doesn’t know that about david plouffe.

in his half hour of taking questions from the crowd of claremont consortium students, plouffe thoroughly revealed his deep analytical perspective, and a great sense of loyalty to president obama as well as the democratic party. this was somewhat surprising, as one might recall that plouffe is a hired professional, not an elected official. not to make the guy out to be a mercenary, especially considering the fact that according to reports, he only made $144,000 on the year. which is INSANELY low for the liberal answer to karl rove. particularly when we consider that axelrod apparently made over a million dollars.

anyway, plouffe had a lot of interesting things to say at pomona. speaking to a crowd of well over 1,000 students at the gorgeous bridges auditorium, plouffe commended young people for being involved in the democratic process. “I’ve never been more sure in the future of our couintry than I am becuase of the creativity and energey of young people” plouffe said. he also laughed derisively at the lack of youth-orientation of the other campaigns. responding to what allowed obama to overtake hillary in iowa, plouffe recalled a comment by mark penn (then hillary’s campaing manager). just before the caucus, penn told reporters that obama’s youth strategy was misguided, because “facebook doesn’t caucus.” not only was this proven quite wrong, but everyone in the crowd got a good laugh over the incorrect grammatical phrasing.

a thorough democrat, plouffe reserved his best wit for deriding the republican party. responding to questions about how obama outplayed mccain for the win, plouffe explained that obama had a notable disadvantage in that he did not secure the democratic nomination until june 3rd,  two months later than it had taken john kerry to do the same in 2004. “john mccain had 8 months to raise money and differentiate himself from george bush,” plouffe explained, “but by some feat of political malpractice, mccain did neither of those things.”

“the republican party is having an identity crisis” he later confessed, “i look forward to watching how they reform.”

known for his belief that sarah palin was a gift to the obama campaign, plouffe also spent some time joyfully recalling what he characterized as her political inepitude and deviseness. “sarah plain was our best campaigner and fundraiser,” he told the crowd. “we receieved $8-9 million while she spoke in minneapolis alone. the next day, all our campaign headquarters received swarms of people saying: ‘i’m gonna give you the next 45 days of my life.’”

plouffe maintained that it was that kind of grassroots support that made the difference in the obama campaign. he left by giving the students of claremont a reason to clap for him by clapping for themselves. “we owe you,” he repeated twice. “you are the heroes of this election.”

it made me feel like i was back in new hampshire, right before the election, with everything up for grabs. i joined the standing ovation.

just to give the background on this story, i’ve been spending the week with my brother in california while i am on spring break. my brother is a sophomore studying international relations and spanish at pomona college. we actually spent the day at venice beach and arrived halfway through plouffe’s speech. but it was worth it.

the cynic in me has to ask a big question: should the newspaper survive at all? note that i am not referring to the news media, which i view as invaluable, but the newspaper, which prints news and advertisements on cheap paper, and distributes it. frankly, the newspaper model is not too efficient on almost any front: economically, it spends the bulk (over 75% of its operating budget) on actually printing and distributing the paper. environmentally, it produces a product that consumes an enormous amount of inks (chemicals), paper products (trees) and must be distributed by automobiles that are surely not carbon-friendly. and whenever a newspaper is not ‘properly’ recycled, it becomes litter or landfill. in short, what is it about paper news that is really so indispensable? i can’t really think of anything, save its convenience of material existence when you encounter a newspaper somewhere other news media can’t go, or somewhere you weren’t expecting to require news media (see lunch). i can also not support the ‘paper fetishists’ among us, who believe in some sort of divine spirit attached to the physical texture of news print. given the economic and environmental cost of newspapers, its frankly silly that anyone would still want to print them (i suppose the people who want physical advertisements are really the driving force behind their continued existence). 

so could a non-profit model work for news media? yes. i think so. particularly if newspapers are willing to stop being news papers and just become news media. the new york times has been the most risk-taking in this effect, striving to become a interactive (flash animation, video, podcasting) news outlet as it perceives the mortality of physical print journalism. while working as an editorial assistant at the newport mercury, i discovered that the actual news production of a paper is its smallest cost; distribution and production being the bulk of the budget. in a non-profit, even a small endowment could allow a skeleton crew of journalists to produce investigative reporting and editorial content of note. the best part is, funded by ads, donations, and endowments, small ‘journalism-cells’ could still allow their produced content to be freely accessed. viva the arrival of the ultimate form of citizen journalism: the micro news media!

of course, non-profit status for newspapers threatens one of its most treasured commodities: its political endorsement. cardin’s bill flatly denies the ability of non-profit journalism to endorse political candidates. one has to wonder if that will be all that non-profit status can deny a news organization. would reviews of movies, consumer products, music, and other cultural products also be castrated by non-profit status? it seems fair, after all, if warner brothers were to donate a hefty component to the institution, might that not seem to be paying for a positive review? the answer, of course, is not necessarily; the dark knights gets advertised in newspaper’s whether or not they think the movie is a gift from cinematic gods. so i feel that donations to an endowment, while suggestive of bias, don’t need to correlate to a devolution in news media production. 

this, after all, seems like a good step forward. instead of running around like chicken little, screaming that the newspaper in the sky is falling, now we have some people saying “let’s remodel it.”

two updates: 

1. sf chronicle profiles ‘mother jones’ model for non-profit news
2. clay shirkey and the newspaper’s paradox