Thirteen Writers Reimagine the Book
The Age of Anxiety (and Innovation) for the Academic Library
Paul Glassman Director of University Libraries At an annual conference for academic librarians at Rutgers University, James G. Neal, then Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, spoke on “The Imperfect Storm: The Prospects for Systemic Change Across Academic Libraries.” (1) Scandalizing his audience, he began by diagnosing us as suffering…
The Future of Holocaust Literature
Dr. Karen Shawn Associate Professor of Jewish Education and Administration; Founding Editor, PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators Holocaust literature will continue to serve as a central repository of trauma and memory for the generations who seek to learn the essentials of the Shoah. Narratives, poetry and testimonial literature offer the power and poignancy…
The Backwash of War: A New Future for an Extraordinary Book
Dr. Cynthia Wachtell Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program and Research Associate Professor of American Studies When I think of the future of the book, I think of the past of the book. In particular, I think of one special book: The Backwash of War, by Ellen N. La Motte. I have been immersed in researching…
Can Children’s Books Do Better When Talking About Morality?
Dr. Lisa Chalik Assistant Professor of Psychology We think a lot about how to communicate positive values to our children. We model good behaviors. We reward prosocial actions. We read stories based around positive morals. The list goes on. All of this is to say that we try to cram as much moral content into…
Has the Digital Age Made Books Obsolete?
Dr. Tamar Avnet Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Marketing Department, Sy Syms School of Business In order to answer this question, one first needs to understand what value a book brings to its readers. In marketing, we differentiate between a product’s features and the value or benefits derived from these features. For example,…
The Future of the Book: A Historian’s Perspective
Dr. Jeffrey Freedman Professor of History Predictions of the book’s imminent death are nothing new. From the advent of mass circulation daily newspapers in the 19th century to the spread of movies, radio and television in the 20th, the prophets of cultural doom have repeatedly declared the book to be an endangered species. And yet…
The Future of the…Book?
David Lavinsky Associate Professor, English Writing at midcentury, Marcel Thomas, keeper in the Department of Manuscripts at the Bibliothèque nationale, surmised that “the new media of our age, broadcasting and the cinema, may help us grasp how ideas and works can be transmitted without passing through the medium of print.”(1) Scarcely six decades later, written…
How Much Reading Does a Human Being Need?
Rabbi Shalom Carmy Assistant Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Bible Online, I can access thousands of Torah books. I can read or confirm a citation in thousands of classic works of literature, philosophy and history. Innumerable scholarly journals, once available only in specialized libraries, appear on my screen with the tap of a few keys.…
When More is Less: Talmudic Methodology in the Information Age
Rabbi Daniel Stein Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary In recent years, one of the most impactful additions to the Talmudic library has been the Mesivta edition of the Talmud. The Mesivta Talmud provides the most thorough and annotated Hebrew translation of the Talmud to date, complete with diagrams and charts as well as…