From Papyrus to Hypertext: Toward the Universal Digital Library

by Christian Vandendorpe; Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott, Translators
University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, 2009
191 pp., illus. 10 b/w. Trade, $65.00; paper, $25
ISBN: 978-0-252-03435-0 ; ISBN: 978-0-252-07625-1.

Reviewed by Kathrine Elizabeth Anker
Nærum, Denmark

keanker@get2net.dk

The book places itself within the central debate of the late 1990s concerning the status and future of print books and hypertext. It is written in an essayist style, with 40 short nodes, each relating to central topics of the debate. Vandendorpe relates contemporary and future concerns to relevant, historical themes. Thereby he integrates relevant observations of ancient writing cultures, from the Renaissance to our time, with present hypertext problematics. The essayist style and the small nodes allows him to place his historical observations in a non-linear, thematic organization, which makes the book less heavy, and more in tune with present hypertext writing style. In this way he treats central concrete, cultural, and philosophical issues that all seem to be affected by the shift from the centrality of print to the computer as the primary text organizer, and comes up with many relevant reflections. From Papyrus to Hypertext places itself in a line of hypertext theory that can be seen as commencing with Jay David Bolter's (1991) Writing Space, George Landow's (1992) Hypertext 2.0 & Espen Aarseth's (1997) Cybertext. Whereas Bolter and Landow had an evolutionary, text philosophical perspective, Aarseth was more pragmatic in trying to create an overall concept of text, that could refer to both print and computer generated text. Günther Kress in Literacy in the New Media Age (2003) and Christiane Heibach in Litteratur im elektronischem Raum (2003) continues this aim, and attempts to create new concepts and a new vocabulary, that can embrace the characteristics of multisensoric multimedia text and make the importance of medium explicit. In this context Vandendorpe's philosophical, essayist style seems more related to the first line of hypertext theoretics. However, at a text-philosophical level, he does engage in questions concerning the future of the novel and the academic thesis, which must be seen as questions that are still unresolved, and thus relevant.

In relation to a contemporary English speaking audience within the field of Hypertext Theory one would have to regret that the translation was not made earlier. New media develop fast, and people adapt to new habits just as fast. In the 1990s the web page was still a new phenomenon for the broad public. Today it is so common that one hardly thinks about it. The debate on hypertext culture versus the traditions of print culture already seems ancient, and the main messages of the book are neither as new nor as relevant as a contemporary reader could wish for. For newcomers into the field of text and New Media, however, the book gives good insight into central themes of the debate, and since the problems of the future of print books, and the possible development of the academic thesis form are still unsolved, it seems constructive to continuously bring new audiences into the debate. With this in mind, the translation of Vandendorpe's book does seem to serve a relevant purpose.