Author Archives: Jason Alley

I Remember When…

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After reading a bunch of blog posts about things of the past, I was brought back to thinking about little things that no longer exist in todays society that I miss. A few weeks ago I found these two pins on pinterest: 35 Things You Will Never See Again In Your Life and Awesome Things From The 90’s. Although some of the things mentioned were not “erased” by advances in technology, it is still fun to reminisce about things of the past every once in a while.

A couple people mentioned how with advances in technology there follows job loss. One comment in particular, about movie rental stores going out of business really hit home for me. I think it is such a shame that places like Blockbuster are going out of business these days. Although Netflix has grown immensely over the past few years, that doesn’t mean that it should become a substitute for going to a store to rent a movie. Not only is going to a video store fun, as you get to browse through all types of movies you would normally skip over on netflix, but it also allows for human interaction.

I remember waiting in line, being tempted by all the candy, and getting to the counter to have a conversation with the cashier about how he/she loved or even hated the particular movie I had picked out. Little things like that don’t exist now because of advances in technology.

Lastly, Netflix is really not all that it’s hyped up to be. If you want to watch a good movie, spur of the moment, it is not easy to find one there. Everything may be on Netflix, but not on, “Watch Instantly.” So, how video stores have become so irrelevant is beyond me.

Copying is Sharing!

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I found this interesting website i’m using as a source for my essay and I came by a few videos about copyright.  The main argument is that copyright was created for the publisher’s benefit and not the author’s protection and therefore copying isn’t “stealing” but simply sharing ideas.  I like the comedic approach and simplistic view to a widely debated complex topic in this video.

 

Had Lithography been invented….

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Thinking about the three book viewings that we’ve had over the past few weeks, I have kind of grouped everything together in my head. But when I focus on the first book viewing as opposed to our most recent one, I can see that there have been a lot of changes in print, style, paper…etc. over the years. Needless to say, a lot has changed from our viewings of papyrus and parchment to our viewings of more modern books (Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice). What comes to mind from our first books viewing  is the Pope Joan picture we got to see. When we viewed that, I was really impressed with it’s detail. However, after seeing the lithographs of Lafayette on Tuesday, the Pope Joan drawing seemed more like a stick figure. The Lithographs were so intricate, expressing so much detail as opposed to the bolded looking, one dimensional Pope Joan. So, the artwork and designs in books definitely would have been much more detailed back then had they known about lithography. Although the lithographic process was seemingly a bit more complicated as the “image transmission depends not on mechanical actions, but on the chemical properties of attraction between oils” (Howard 131), it is well worth the difference in the beauty of the end product.

Technology Makes Jobs Obsolete

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As technology progresses, we often find that certain areas of an industry, or even an entire industry, become obsolete.  We have seen this happen recently with the recording industry and as ebooks and self-publishing become more popular, certain jobs in book publishing are becoming harder to find.  This is not a new trend, though.  It has happened throughout history, as technology has moved forward.  One advancement in book publishing that has had this effect was the creation of the printing technique called “stereotyping.”  Nicole Howard notes that this technique was disliked by compositors, whose jobs became obsolete as a result of the advancement.  Compositors were once held in high regard for their knowledge of grammar, as they often corrected the grammar, spelling, and punctuation of the texts they edited, including Milton and Shakespeare.  Whether this positive or negative is not important; what is important is that, after stereotyping, compositors ceased to be involved in the process at all.

With the speed at which technology is advancing today, I wonder what other jobs will soon become obsolete.

Lithography

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After looking at a lithograph up close in class on Tuesday I have a whole new appreciation for lithographs. I couldn’t believe how detailed the picture was, it was almost as if it was drawn by hand. Seeing the image in person was just so much different than looking at it online but you can still see the incredible amount of work and detail that went into the picture. Even the people in the background of the picture have faces and distinct body outlines, I wasn’t expecting that at all for this time period and for this level of technology.

http://cdm.lafayette.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/mdl-prints&CISOPTR=1468&CISOBOX=1&REC=14

Cast Iron Book Presses Today

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I found this interesting website that sells, among many other interesting items, old cast iron book presses.  Although these types of presses have since fallen out of fashion, I find it interesting that there are people still interested in them, if not for their original purpose then for the historical value.  The fact that their historical value is so revered demonstrates how important these presses were in moving book publishing technology forward.

Tuesday’s Class

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In Tuesday’s class we talked a little more about a books history.  It was really fascinating to learn about the different places each book has been and how it ended up in our special collections department.  I particularly found it interesting that the Dickens set, which was beautifully bound, contained the original covers and spines within the books, or at least within A Christmas Carol.   It made me wonder if that is something that many people do when they replace original binding.

The Non Cur

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So the latest Non Cur came out today and it got me thinking about censorship. I’m buddies with two of the guys who run the Non cur and I’m familiar with the struggle they faced to get their paper started. If you read the school paper last semester they published an article from the administrations point of view, attacking the paper which at that point didn’t have any recognition by the school. The administration pointed out that as a private institution students don’t really have all the constitutional rights they would have at a public institution.  Thankfully the english department came to the rescue and saved the satirical paper from the administrations crackdown on anything “Underground” fraternities and otherwise.

Art and Print

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We can better see the social and political impact of printing technology in the 19th century, especially when we look to those whom we deem artists. The lithograph allowed for clear, dependent, and immediate reproduction of images and type. For this, newspapers flourished as they were able to print many copies to distribute, as well as hone their quality. For an artist, this medium could be a perfect way to get their art (and name) out there, or to send a message. Daumier was a virulent critic of French politics in the first half of the 19th century. His lithographs were today’s political cartoons, showing up in newspapers during an era of uncharacteristic weak censorship. Though we have been reading much of the technical aspect of production, here we have a sense of the content made available by these technologies.