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From Gutenberg to Google: Electronic Representations of Literary Texts

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When you start the introduction of this book the author talks about the thoughts he was having as he stood in the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany. I had exactly the same thoughts. Gutenberg caused a revolution that led to our modern society. The move to electronic texts is no less dramatic. Although if you talk with the attendents in the Gutenberg museum they don't see any threat at all to the continued dominance of the printed page. And as I look at the amount of paper produced in my own office, I see a certain justification for their view.

In this book Dr. Shillingsburg takes a hard and critical view of the current state of electronic publishing. He talks primarily about scholastic publishing. Where books need to be carefully reviewed during the publishing process. And there is no question about his conclusion that the definitive concepts of electronic publishing simply aren't here yet. It is important to remember, however, that printed publishing has had almost six hundred years to get to its present state, and the whole concept of electronic publishing is only a handful of years old.

This book begins a discussion that is going to continue for the next several decades.