The paper book

This section introduces a definition for paper books as well as introducing topics related to their production, distribution and use such as: the concepts of text, paper and electronic books, and documents in general and the study of cognitive processes, such as reading and browsing a book, which are reviewed in both their classical and electronic versions in order to evaluate their roles as part of an electronic publishing environment.

The aim of this analysis is to identify the key agents, entities and processes involved in the traditional publishing system in order to identify their electronic equivalents and the metaphors which can be used to build a digital version of this publishing system. In this regard particular attention has been paid to the analysis and definition of a visual rhetoric which is derived from the appearance of text, a crucial concept which has been used as the starting point for the definition of the visual book. Figure 1 represents, in this research, the link between paper books and electronic books – the book metaphor – where electronic books are an electronic implementation of the book metaphor which has been extracted from the study of paper books.

This is not strictly a direct link, i.e. various instances of electronic books can be derived from the same book metaphor under different interpretations. The advantage of using a metaphor as the basis for the electronic book system is in its flexibility and the possibility of adapting it to different users’ requirements. The book is considered in this context as an entity, the conceptual book, which is specified in terms of the aspects most representative and relevant to the environment where it has to be used, together with a minimal set of features which have demonstrated their utility through centuries of use. The paper and the electronic versions can then be viewed as different implementations of the conceptual book. In this way they both depend on the level of respective technologies available when each form of book was published.

There are two basic dictionary (Collins, 1979) definitions of a book, which describe it in physical and logical terms:

1. book: a number of pieces of paper, either blank or with words printed on which have been fastened together along one edge and fixed inside a cover of stronger paper or cardboard;
2. or
3. book: the story, the ideas, or the information written in a book.

A book may therefore be interpreted as an object which has certain well-defined physical and conceptual features. It has a long history and it has gradually evolved to its present form. Its shape, dimensions, internal structure, materials and even its social function have changed over the centuries, resulting in its present form.

A functional view of books is that they are intended to:

• keep information;
• present information;
• distribute information;
• document experiences.

The keyword in this definition is the word information and the way to transform text into information is to have a reader interested in its contents. Without readers’ interest books are reduced to being rectangular objects mainly made of paper. Readers’ reaction, attention, and interest in the book are part of the book itself; it is what makes the rectangular object become an information system. A familiar principle of literary criticism (Burt, 1959) is that: the first requirement for any book is that it shall interest the reader, and shall give some kind of pleasure, which implies a certain degree of value. Readers’ interest may result from a need for:

• inspiration: e.g. religion, philosophy, poetry, fine drama, fine fiction;
• information: e.g. biography, history, travel, science, useful arts, sociology;
• recreation: e.g. fiction, drama, humour, essay, light reading in various fields.

If books are not interesting to anybody then they lose their intrinsic value. In effect books gain their value through utility as well as usability.

3.1. Books and reading

It is possible to identify at least two different points of view concerning the reading process: those related to printing and associated typographical issues, and psychological ones. Printing can be seen as the mechanism for making books available to people who are interested in them, by making available versions of manuscripts which would otherwise not be accessible for the majority of readers. Typography is the art of presenting written information in a form which is easy to read and most appealing to readers, and contributes to making information contained in books more easily assimilated by readers. Gutenberg’s discovery can be seen as a fundamental and radical revolution which has strongly influenced the distribution and use of information. It has made possible the availability of books that were once the preserve of a very closed aristocracy of librarians, or wealthy bibliophiles, whose role was mainly to act as custodians and who did not necessarily read and use them, a scenario well depicted by Umberto Eco (1980) in The Name of the Rose.

Today many copies of the same book can be seen, read and used by anybody interested in their contents. As a result of this revolution the roles of all the people involved in producing books changed completely. In the pre-moving type era manuscripts were the most significant component of the publishing process, with no mention either of the amanuensis or of the author whose identity was very often confused and uncertain. In the post-Gutenberg era authors became the central guarantors of text, with a supporting role being played by editors. Together with designers and typographers editors are responsible for making the content of books readable and of interest to the public. They all share the responsibility for transforming the ideas which are initially in the author’s mind into information useful for the public. In fact information becomes essentially a kind of common property which is available to entire communities, at least in its final stage.

As the landscape of communication is changing, so are the role of books and the perception people have of them (Wilson, 1997; Manes, 1999). Therefore it is very important for future publishing models to study and understand the value of books as one of the most successful tools for information delivery. The first step in this analysis is the consideration of relationships between the appearance of text and its legibility, i.e. how typography can help readers.

3.2. Typography and reading

A combination of psychology and a study of typography can help researchers to understand how reading processes are performed by human beings. The type on pages can be perceived as a shape that is tracked according to a visual pattern which is independent of its semantic content. That is to say, readers are trapped in a mechanical reading loop in which they follow the lines automatically but assimilate little or no meaning. This state can be created by poor authoring or, most commonly, through bad typography. The difference between good and bad typography can be measured in terms of such vital factors as the comparative time taken to read a book, the degree of pleasure and profit derived, and consideration of care for the eyes.

Reading is a technique dependent on the context, the kind of text, readers’ attitudes and readers’ needs with regard to a particular text. Typography has a major and essential role in determining the percentage of an author’s message that is successfully conveyed. Some aspects of the reading technique are well-known. For example the fact that eyes travel above the line has implications for letter design which may be summarised by stating that the recognition characteristics of a typeface are concentrated in the upper part of letters. It is also known (Rubinstein, 1988) that the vertical field of vision expands with the horizontal one to the extent that certain peripheral information about the structure of the reading passage is acquired from two or more lines at the same time. Eye movements focus attention on the importance of interlinear white space for continuous reading. A fluent reading rhythm of two and a bit spans, where a span is defined as the linear amount of text covered with a single glance, is found to be normal (McGarry, 1991).

In essence, reading is an activity in which readers consider ideas and relate them to their own experiences, matching text cues based on their graphical features (McGarry, 1991). All these facts can help book designers to establish the best features for assisting and facilitating reading processes.

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