infoplahvatusest, mis kaasnes trükkimise tulekuga

Huvitav artikkel Peter Burke'lt Coping with Gutenberg: the Information Explosion in Early Modern Europe, kus käsitletakse nähtusi ja muutusi Euroopas, mis kaasnesid trükikunsti leiutamise ning trükikodade tekke ja levikuga erinevates riikides 16. sajandil.
Väga aktuaalne lugemine ajal, mil e-raamatute tulek on muutmas meie arusaamist raamatust, selle kirjastamisest, lugemisest jne. Uuendustega käib paratamatult kaasas millegi senise lõppemine (näiteks prantsuse humanist Guillaume Fichet arvas, et trükikoja lubamine Pariisi on justkui Trooja hobuse lubamine linna..).
Tänasel päeval me teame, kui palju edasiviiv oli inimkonna jaoks trükikunsti leiutamine (me isegi ei kujuta ette, et see inimene on haritud, kes raamatut ei loe!), siis miks me nii väga kardame selle meediumi muutumist? Digitaalsena on infolevi võimalik veel ulatuslikumalt. Kuid muidugi, kannatavad ju paljud senised ärihuvid ja -mudelid, sest uued asjad sunnivad muutuma, nii mõndagi senisest asendama jne. Paljud senised harjumused ja tõekspidamised vajavad üle vaatamist ja ümber hindamist.
Näiteks üks väljavõte artiklist lugemise kohta:

"Writing in 1819, an English man of letters, Francis Jeffrey, expressed the fear that ‘if we continue to write and rhyme at the present rate for 200 years longer, there must be some new art of short-hand reading invented - or all reading will be given up in despair’. In an informal way, this was what had already been happening for centuries. There was a shift from ‘intensive’ to ‘extensive’ reading (or in Francis Bacon’s famous metaphor, from ‘swallowing’ to ‘tasting’ books). The later eighteenth century has been presented as a turning-point in this respect (though it should not be forgotten that early modern people, like ourselves, were capable of changing gear and shifting from one mode of reading to another when this was necessary). A new vocabulary came into use in the early modern period to describe this ‘reading revolution’, including words such as ‘referring’, ‘consulting’, ‘skimming’ and ‘skipping’. As Jonathan Swift commented with his usual pessimistic wit, ‘to enter the palace of learning at the great gate, requires an expense of time and forms; men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the backdoor’. These were the literary equivalents of ‘surfing the net’."

Artiklist põhjalikumalt saab teema kohta lugeda Peter Burke' raamatutest ühise pealkirja all "A Social History of Knowledge".