While not directly related to publication technology, this online article describes why some people, specifically females, add extra letters to text messages and emails. It reminded me of one of our first discussions in class when we talked about authors’ voices versus readers’ perceptions in literature. At times, it can be more difficult to express emotions with written words because the reader does not have the ability to see the contextual clues that the author would express when speaking: a smile, wink, rolling of the eyes, etc. In lieu of these gestures and without a special sarcasm period or apostrophe, extra letters are one way to give the author more control of his or her intentions. This idea assumes, however, that the reader can identify and differentiate between the five different reasons for elongating words.

On Tuesday, we examined a great deal of material which almost caught us up to the modern age of printing. It was interesting to see books printed for a much larger audience; for example, we saw the first bits of magazine-style advertising in Dickens monthly installations, and it can be predicted that after that it can certainly be proposed that advertising became much more widespread, not just in newspapers, but in books, magazines and journals. The new, mechanized way of printing books allowed books to be printed more quickly and distributed to an even larger audience. As Howard points out, Stanhope’s iron press allowed for much more efficient printing; the London Times invested in a “battalion” of them, greatly increasing their production. It’s interesting to see that books in that era were printed so efficiently, yet the labor required was still vastly more extensive than the labor required for books printed today. It really takes away the value of the book nowadays to think that some books aren’t even printed, and are simply available through e-book format, when our predecessors worked so hard to ensure that a printed book could be available to anyone who wanted to learn how to read.

For this week’s prompt, I have thought of a very interesting scenario. In one of the earlier class sessions in the library, we examined manuscripts dating back to the Middle Ages. With these pieces, everyone noticed the great amount of labor that went into creating the intricate details of the books, as well as the material that these works were made out of. For my what if scenario, I am wondering how things would be if the printers of the time had access to modern printers and materials. The issue presented with this is that if this were the case, then we would not be able to view such materials today. The reasoning behind this assumption has to do with the issues of quality and preservation. As some people have stated in previous blog posts, the advances in mass production have resulted in books of lower quality. Today, people have the knowledge of how to preserve such fragile materials for the future. However, in the Middle Ages, such knowledge would not be available. So, it is not unreasonable be to assume that if the modern form of books had existed back then, hundreds of years of exposure to various elements would have removed such objects from existence.

I found this article titled, “11 Problems People Had in the ’00s” on the website, Buzzfeed. The 11 problems highlight how changes in technology affect the way society views everyday life. The article reminds me of a comment in Howard’s book discussing how time and technology affected people’s preferences of fonts:

“…within fifty years of this work, the attractiveness of scribal handwriting gave way to the clarity of more utilitarian scripts” (63).

Technology has greatly affected how students view the college experience as writing technology has changed quite a lot over the years. My parents always talk about writing papers on typewriters, and how they had to be extremely careful not to have any typos. Computers and Microsoft Word technology has completely changed the way students view assignments. I oftentimes make mistakes when writing, but technology fixes those mistakes.

What if Steve Jobs lived during Guttenburg’s time? Jobs was an innovator and changed the computer, cell phone, etc. industries. His human capital and vision have affected how millions of people communicate on a daily basis. Likewise, the printing press prompted a major transformation of the book industry, which reshaped how people communicated.

I think one difference Jobs would have brought to early printing and books would have been fonts. Initially, they were bulky and difficult to read. Jobs preached simplicity so I think fonts such as this type would have been used earlier.

The WIPO has a huge part in copyright law and I though the youtube channel might be helpful for writing your papers or even just more info on the topic. The website has in depth information on the treaties and other services.