| At the beginning of the twenty-first century, systems of communication are undergoing profound change. Some analysts see this change as revolutionary, comparable with the invention of printing in the west in the fifteenth century, or even of written language itself in the ancient world. Others see it as merely evolutionary, a further application of new technologies to the process of storing, transmitting and communicating information. All agree, however, that there has indeed been great change, symbolised by the development of the global system of communication between computers which we call the Internet. The Internet, however, is only the outward sign; it is the power of the computer itself which really underpins what has happened and what continues to happen, for this is the most powerful tool in history for the handling of information.
For the publishing industry, the development of new media of information storage and transmission represents a particular challenge. Publishers are essentially dealers in knowledge, and hence in the languages and symbols in which knowledge is put into permanent form for present and future use. The printed book – so recently the iconic cultural product of western society – suddenly seems in real danger of displacement not merely as a medium of entertainment and a tool of leisure (where its position has long been under threat), but also in the sphere where it has been almost unchallenged for 500 years as the container and purveyor of learning and ideas. |
