The eBook is 40 (1971-2011) Part 10

A writer and musician, Jean-Paul has offered beautiful hypermedia works on his website cotres.net since October 1998, while searching how hyperlinks could expand his writing towards new directions. He wrote in June 2000: "Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another, as the links appear).

You can do this in the written media, of course. But the difference is striking. So the internet changed how I write. You don't write the same way for a website as you do for a script or a play. (...) Since then I write directly on the screen: I use the print medium only occasionally (...): [in it] the text is developing page after page (most of the time), whereas the technique of links allows another relations.h.i.+p to the time and s.p.a.ce of imagination. And, for me, it is above all the opportunity to put into practice this reading/writing 'cycle', whereas leafing through a book gives only an idea -- which is vague because the book is not conceived for that."

A writer and musician, Jean-Paul has offered beautiful works of digital literature, while searching how hyperlinks could expand his writing towards new directions.

In October 1998, he switched from being a print author to being an hypermedia author, and created cotres.net ("cotres" could be translated by "cutters" in English) as a website "telling stories in 3D", either French-language stories or plurilingual stories.

Jean-Paul also enjoyed the freedom of online self-publis.h.i.+ng. He explained in June 2000: "The internet allows me to do without intermediaries, such as record companies, publishers and distributors.

Most of all, it allows me to crystallize what I have in my head: the print medium (desktop publis.h.i.+ng, in fact) only allows me to partly do that. (...) Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another, as the links appear).

You can do this in the written media, of course. But the difference is striking. So the internet changed how I write. You don't write the same way for a website as you do for a script or a play. (...)

In fact, it is not the internet which changed how I write, it is the first Mac that I discovered through the self-learning of HyperCard. I still remember how astonished I was during the month when I was learning about b.u.t.tons, links, surfing by a.n.a.logies, objects or images.

The idea that a simple click on one area of the screen allowed me to open a range of piles of cards, and each card could offer new b.u.t.tons and each b.u.t.ton opened on to a new range, etc. In brief, the learning of everything on the web that today seems really ba.n.a.l, for me it was a revelation (it seems Steve Jobs and his team had the same shock when they discovered the ancestor of the Mac in the laboratories of Rank Xerox).

Since then I write directly on the screen: I use the print medium only occasionally, to fix up a text, or to give somebody who is allergic to the screen a kind of photograph, something instantaneous, something approximate. It is only an approximation, because print forces us to have a linear relations.h.i.+p: the text is developing page after page (most of the time), whereas the technique of links allows another relations.h.i.+p to the time and s.p.a.ce of imagination. And, for me, it is above all the opportunity to put into practice this reading/writing 'cycle', whereas leafing through a book gives only an idea -- which is vague because the book is not conceived for that."

Jean-Paul insisted on the growing interaction between digital literature and technology: "The future of cyber-literature, techno- literature, digital literature or whatever you want to call it, is set by the technology itself. It is now impossible for an author to handle all by himself the words and their movement and sound. A decade ago, you could know well each of Director, Photoshop or Cubase (to cite just the better known software), using the first version of each. That is not possible any more. Now we have to know how to delegate, find more solid financial partners than Gallimard [a major French publisher], and look in the direction of Hachette-Matra, Warner, and Hollywood. At best, the status of multimedia director (?) will be the one of video director, film director, manager of the product. He is the one who receives the golden palms at Cannes, but who would never have been able to earn them just on his own. As twin sister (not a clone) of the cinematograph, cyber-literature (video + the link) will be an industry, with a few isolated craftsmen on the outer edge (and therefore with below-zero copyright)."

"Canon laser", one of Jean-Paul's literary works, was first published as a print work using the first ODP software allowing artists to easily play with the form of letters (as characters). As a follow-up, a plurilingual hypermedia version was published on cotres.net in 2002.

In July 2011, the home page of cotres.net has given access to three literary works taking inspiration from both Paris and the whole planet.

"Solstice" (2008), a universal greetings card, is round instead of rectangular, to celebrate soft round forms versus hurtful rectangular forms.

"Agression93" (2009) is a short story about a minor attack in the suburbs, that can be read in four minutes when only using hyperlinks on the bottom right of the screen to fifteen minutes when searching hyperlinks with the mouse and clicking on some of them.

"Aux Jardins de Picpus" (2010) is a guided visit of the small gardens of Picpus in Paris.

2000 > THE ORIGINAL GUTENBERG BIBLE ONLINE

[Summary]

As a sign of the times, with the ebook being nearly 30 years old, a digitized version of the original Gutenberg Bible was available online in November 2000 on the website of the British Library. Gutenberg printed its Bible in 1454 in Mainz, Germany, perhaps printing 180 copies, with 48 copies still available in 2000, and two full copies at the British Library. As they were a little different, both were digitized in March 2000 by j.a.panese experts from Keio University of Tokyo and NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications). The images were then processed to offer a full digitized version on the web a few months later, for the world to enjoy.

As a sign of the times, with the ebook being nearly 30 years old, a digitized version of the original Gutenberg Bible was available online in November 2000 on the website of the British Library.

# The Gutenberg Bible

In 2000, the digital book was nearly 30 years old. It was born in July 1971 with eText #1 of Project Gutenberg.

The print book was five centuries and a half old. Gutenberg printed its Bible in 1454 in Mainz, Germany, perhaps printing 180 copies, with 48 copies still available in 2000, and two full copies at the British Library. As they were a little different, both were digitized in March 2000 by j.a.panese experts from Keio University of Tokyo and NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications). The images were then processed to offer a full digitized version on the web a few months later, for the world to enjoy.

# The ebook in late 2000

In late 2000, thousands of public domain works were freely available on the web in digital libraries.

A number of bookstores and publishers had their own websites. Some of them were born online, with all their transactions made through the internet.

Alongside their traditional tasks of lending books or other doc.u.ments, and offering a collection of reference works, librarians helped their patrons to navigate the web without being drowned, organized a selection of websites for them, and created their own websites with an online catalog and a digital library.

More and more books and periodicals were "only" digital, skipping the cost of a print version. From "static" in print books, information become "fluid" on the internet, and regularly updated.

Many authors were using the internet to seek information, disseminate their work, exchange with their readers and collaborate with other creators.

Some authors began searching how using hyperlinks could expand their writing towards new directions, creating hypermedia novels and sites of hyperfiction, while mixing text, image and sound.

Academic and scientific publishers began to reorganize their work and favor online publis.h.i.+ng, with prints versions only on demand. Some universities made their own textbooks with a selection of chapters and articles from a database, as well as comments from professors.

The internet became mandatory to find information, communicate, access doc.u.ments, and broaden our knowledge. People no longer needed to run after information. Information was there, by the numbers, available on our screen, often at no cost, including for those who studied in a remote place, lived in the countryside, worked at home or were stuck in a bed.

The web became a gigantic encyclopedia, a extensive library, a huge bookstore and a full medium on its own.

Some people even read a book on the screen of a computer, a PDA or a (still very expensive) ebook reader.

2001 > BROADBAND BECAME THE NORM

[Summary]

Henk Slettenhaar has extensive knowledge of communication technology, with a long career in Geneva, Switzerland, and California. In 1992, he founded the Swiss Silicon Valley a.s.sociation (SVA) and, since then, has been taking study groups to Silicon Valley, San Francisco and other high-tech areas. Henk wrote in July 2001: "I am experiencing a tremendous change with having a 'broadband' connection at home. To be connected at all times is so completelely different from dial-up. I now receive email as soon as it arrives, I can listen to my favorite radio stations wherever they are. I can listen to the news when I want to.

Get the music I like all the time. (...) The only thing which is missing is good quality real time video. The bandwidth is too low for that."

Ten years later, Henk has watched real time video, and read ebooks in the Kindle and the iPad.

Henk Slettenhaar has extensive knowledge of communication technology, with a long career in Geneva, Switzerland, and California. Ten years after getting a broadband connection at gome, he reads ebooks on a Kindle or an iPad.

Henk joined CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva in 1958 to work with the first digital computer. He was involved in the development of CERN's first digital networks.

His U.S. experience began in 1966 when he joined a team at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) for 18 months to build a film digitizer. Returning to SLAC in 1983, he designed a digital monitoring system, which was used for more than ten years.

For 25 years he tought information technology at Webster University, Geneva. He is the former head of the Telecom Management Program created in fall 2000. He also worked as a consultant for a number of international organizations.

# In 1992

In 1992, with an extensive experience in Switzerland and California, Henk founded the Swiss Silicon Valley a.s.sociation (SVA) and, since then, has been taking study groups to Silicon Valley, San Francisco and other high-tech areas like Los Angeles, Finland and China. These study tours include visits to outstanding companies, start-up, research centers and universities, with the aim of exploring new developments in information technology such as the internet, multimedia and telecommunications. Partic.i.p.ants have the opportunity to learn about state-of-the-art research and development, strategies and business ventures through presentations and discussions, product demonstrations and site tours.

# In 1998

Henk wrote in December 1998: "I can't imagine my professional life without the internet. Most of my communication is now via email. I have been using email for the last 20 years, most of that time to keep in touch with colleagues in a very narrow field. Since the explosion of the internet, and especially the invention of the web, I communicate mainly by email. Most of my presentations are now on the web and the courses I teach are all web-extended. All the details of my Silicon Valley tours are on the web. Without the internet we wouldn't be able to function. And I use the internet as a giant database. I can find information today with the click of a mouse."

# In 2000