Who needs to read the book?
“Culture is conversation, and the role of the intermediary is to
shape that conversation and give new meaning to readers’ lives
simply by helping them find the books they need to read.”
- Gabriel Zaid, So Many Books.
So, as the structure of the book began to reveal itself to us, with the first third of it to cover the sharing of culture, I happened to find myself in the local library browsing the shelves and my eyes landed on the spine of a book entitled, ‘So Many Books.’ It is the source of the quotation above as well as the following:
“But culture is a conversation without a centre.”
In considering how we – each one of us – has become expert in the sharing of digital things, what are the conversations that we are aware of being a part? How many are there, what types and how do they intermingle?
When we come to envisage the sharing of the Share This Book book, who do we picture as the people that need to read the book? What are the conversations that we will be having?
Tags: conversation, culture, Share This Book, sharing
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 10:47 am and is filed under Book, Share This Book, Share This Course, sharing examples, social network. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:30 am
This is an excellent question and one that admits of no easy answer. The first suggestion would be that Jaron Lanier needs to read this book, because he’s just published a book which pooh-poohs all of this sharing culture.
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January 16th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
interesting question because is it really a question of ‘need’?
that said, I’d say maximum benefit would be –> everyone. In any conversation, consensus is affirming and pleasing but conflicts are (personally) more interesting. If hyper-intelligence is to be achieved, a broader range of perspectives would be essential.
so certainly, whilst those who advocate sharing would benefit from reading the book, then those who are critical or even sceptical of the sharing culture need to be invited into the conversation.
In terms of generations, it would be good to get a wide range as well. Surely there are contexts (topics/focus items?) when we can learn from (much) younger (or older) gens.
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January 17th, 2010 at 5:57 am
The neediest of readers could be percieved to be those who do not, as of yet, have a background in sharing. A particular demographic may be “only children”. Also a demographic would be various sects of people who may have decided that sharing with other humans is unfavorable to their experience of world – hermits, monks, and ascetics of various disciplines. Are we to “convince the nonbelievers”? Is this a blanket concept for all humanity?
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January 17th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Perhaps “everyone” should read this book. Yet, in order to spread the message most quickly and efficiently I think computer innovators and tinkers would be a good group to do so. The type of people who gave rise to music file sharing. Influential people. Passionate people. Trust in the power of sharing, the message will propel itself forward.
I am reminded of our thoughts of making drafts and future editions of Share This Book on Wordpress (am I thinking of the write program, the one that anyone can edit?)and hence open to all…with Internet access anyway. There are many other creative ways of sharing the book as well. Perhaps there can be a page or two in the inside cover/title page area that says, This Book was shared from __________ to ___________. Or in online versions, perhaps one’s name could be added to a list.
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January 18th, 2010 at 3:41 am
Cool question! A lot of the thoughts, suggest to me that the book may be especially appropriate to a particular stage of network development. Just the ideas that @mpesce teased us with at the beginning of the course catalyzed such a change in my network habits and utilization. Most of my local friends have avoided engaging it network culture beyond instrumental searching and facilitating communication between other locals. Many of them do not even have broadband in their homes (I live in a small city surrounded by rural farmland).
It seems to me that the raw experience provided by playing with social networks might be necessary to receive these conceptions. Some experience with networked sharing would be necessary, otherwise the readers would just be engaged in groundless speculation.
Would first act of the book provide enough of a teaser that people inactive in social networks hot to trot? Is it’s goal to guide the reader to understand their preexisting sharing behaviors in a greater, systematic context?
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