Analog vs. Digital: A Thought for the Ongoing Debate
Since storage space and conversion technology has made digital media and digital storage a viable commercial option, a debate has raged (at least among some) as to the relative merits of old analog forms versus the new digital forms. For example, do you prefer the look and feel of paper books, or the convenience and availability of digital books and e-readers? Is music better on vinyl or on CD? And should we do away with vinyl and plastic altogether and just download our music to our phones or other devices?
There are many good arguments on the digital side. Digital books and music don’t wear out. They always look and sound as good as the first time you opened them. They are easy to store, taking up a few megabytes on a server somewhere, as opposed to inches on a shelf. You can put your mp3s and ebooks online, in the “cloud,” so you can access them anywhere, anytime. They never go out of print, and are easy for publishers and retailers to store and distribute to customers.
However, there’s one major drawback to digital media I’ve observed that I don’t often hear discussed. Format. Those of you old enough to remember when video tapes were new, you’ll recall there was a format war that boiled down to VHS or Betamax. In the early 80s, video recorders used one or the other format, and they were not compatible with each other (i.e., VHS video recorders couldn’t play or record Betamax, and vice versa). In the end, VHS won the day. What about all those Betamax tapes? Unless you kept your Betamax VCR, they are now useless.
We assume file formats will last forever. There will always be codecs that will enable my PC to play mp3 files. There will always be pdf, epub, and mobi formats for my ebooks. There will always be word processing apps that can read my Word .doc and .docx files. And granted, many of these formats have been around for close to twenty years, and probably won’t go away anytime soon. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about technology is that it changes. Cassette players have given way to CD, and some say CD’s days are numbered, giving way to digital download. And what happens to all our Microsoft Office files if Microsoft should go bankrupt? Can we be sure there will be computers that can read these things in fifty, sixty, seventy years’ time?
When I was at university and starting my New Testament Greek studies, I wanted to get a Greek-English lexicon. The standard scholarly lexicon was, however, well beyond this poor student’s budget, so I looked in used book stores for a suitable alternative. In the end, I picked up an old edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon. This is a classical (i.e., Attic) Greek lexicon, but while it may lack some nuance of meaning that the later NT Koine Greek had, it would suffice. I paid fourteen pounds for it–significantly cheaper than the latest NT Greek lexicon–and it got me through two years of Greek.
Here’s a picture of the lexicon, open at a random spot:
I would like to get it re-bound sometime when I can afford such things. Now, take a look at the name of one of the previous owners. See the date? That’s almost 90 years ago.
Now look at the title page. See the Roman numerals at the bottom (click to enlarge if your eyes need help)? Can you figure out the date?
If you figured 1863, you are correct (M=1,000; D=500; C=100; L=50; X=10; I=1, so MDCCCLXIII = 1863). Think about that for a moment. This book is 152 years old. When this book was published, Queen Victoria had been reigning for just twenty-six years, the Great Exhibition was twelve years ago, and the horror of Jack the Ripper wouldn’t happen for another twenty-five years. In the U.S., Abraham Lincoln was President, and the Civil War was still going on.
And yet I don’t need any special technology from 1863 to be able to read it. I can open it up and dive into the text just as well as any Victorian university student might have done. And, barring flame or moth, this book will still be around in another 152 years, and still be readable regardless of technology changes.
Can I have that same assurance with my digitial media?
What do you think?
This longevity of format is why, I think, print books are far from going by the wayside. They are still currently a near-universal file format (shared in status as PDF, haha). It seems like ebooks came ’round and many thought they would replace, but instead they enhance.
And I suppose it’s the near-universal accessibility… audio and video media all need, and have always needed, special devices to play them. A print book does not.
I frequently pushing back on those that think so much is being lost with tech changes – but when I look at books, for example, from this angle, this “old school” format and argument for maintaining it is probably one I can get behind.
I agree, Janet. Print books have been around for thousands of years, and I don’t think they’re going anywhere, largely because they are, as you say, so universally accessible. Yet I’m no Luddite. I embrace new technology. I just don’t think a 100% digital world is the Utopia some people claim. When the power goes out and the batteries die, you can still pick up a paperback and read (by candlelight). I prefer to see digital as another form, again as you say, an enhancement.
I think there’s room enough in this world for both print and ebooks. I don’t agree that it will or should be one or the other. You’ve brought up some good points with formatting though. Also the fact that with ebooks, as I understand it, you are buying a license to read the book. Not to own it. That license doesn’t pass on when you die, meaning you can’t pass on your library like you can print books. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.
Absolutely, S.P.–there’s room in the world for both, and I think it’s great that we have both. The point you raise about ownership is a good one, and one I don’t really know a lot about. Unless you actually own a pdf of your ebook, I can see how books you’ve downloaded to your Kindle might a) be available only on the Kindle(s) linked to your Amazon account, and b) non-transferable, though I think Amazon has a program that allows you to share ebooks. How that would work after the demise of the owner is a different issue. Has distribution of electronic assets ever come up during the reading of a will? I have no idea, and would be interested to hear an answer to that.
Interesting that you mentioned a lexicon. That was just the comparison I was thinking.
A format will always remain viable as long as you’ve got the technology to read it. I have a USB floppy disk drive that I’ll use once in a while at work to rescue old data from archival floppy disks.
If you were to hand me a book in Greek, I would be at a complete loss to read it. I lack the software (ie I don’t know Greek) to be able to access it.
When digital technology came into common usage, nobody realised how quickly it would evolve, nor how quickly it would be superseded by the next generation. I’d say we’ve lost about thirty years of info due to a medium we forgot to compensate for.
Luckily for us, we realised we needed to make technology more cross-compatible. I have software that converts my old WordPerfect 5.0 files into a more updated and accessible format.
Digital Preservation is a thing. It involves the conversion of data from an old format to a new format (aka data migration), and it involves the archiving of old access media (mediums?) to enable access of old data in its original format. I have read about (but can’t locate reference to) archive projects that preserve old computer programs so that if they were ever required to access a data format that didn’t get migrated, we’d be able to access that info.
I wish we’d thought of it earlier. I have some music composition files from the early 90’s that I can’t access because the software doesn’t exist anymore, and the format it stored files in isn’t cross-compatible (the way MIDI is).
The recognition of the need for Digital Preservation is growing. NASA and JPL are realising they need to archive all the software the use for satellites and pretty much anything they’ve sent up there. Satellite repurposing is on the rise, but satellites can only be repurposed if you have the software with which to communicate.
Thanks, Heidi! It’s good to know Digital Preservation is a thing. I’d like to think digital media from today will still be readable in 150 years time, especially since there’s so much going straight to digital these days. While you may not have the “software” to read a paper Lexicon, you can at least open it, turn the pages, and read the English definitions, which is more than can be said for an ebook if you don’t have the appropriate ereader, so I think it goes a little beyond merely having software. However, your comment gives me hope. 🙂