Richard Charkin, chief executive of publishing giants Macmillan is a regular blogger and in between discussing the extremely odd sport of cricket, he does deliver some nuggets of golden insight into the information industry. Today, perhaps its weather related as even this cricket hater can see its not the day of willow on leather, is one of those days when he delivers just than insight.
On the 22 June 1957 Nature, part of the Macmillan stable published the below analysis of the effect a new technology known as television is having on published information:
"Far from causing a decline in reading, as was once predicted, it is now becoming evident that television has led to a greatly increased sale of books dealing with topics which have proved popular on the screen. This is perhaps most evident in archaeology, but it is becoming noticeable in other fields too. The growing sport of undersea swimming has reinforced the demand for books about sea life, the publication of which has received a further fillip from the film and television successes of Hans Hass and Jacques Cousteau. We cannot blame the publishers for trying to satisfy this demand, but we can blame them for publishing books seemingly written in haste merely to profit from this fashion.”
Charkin rightly points out, "The messages are clear and still relevant. New technology does not necessarily kill old technology and can in fact enhance it." Perhaps the information sector is jumping too quickly to blame Web 2.0 for the changing shape of information. I shall put these questions to Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amatuer, a polemic on how Web 2.0 is destroying our cultural and economic foundation, tomorrow.
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