AN OLD BUT NEW LOOK AT THE BOOK

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 10, March 11, 2018, Article 31

I thought E-Sylum readers would get a kick out of this essay. I was reading an old collection of humor from Punch and came across R.J. Heathorn's announcement of an innovative learning tool: "Learn With Book," originally published in Punch, May 9, 1962.

A tongue-in-cheek look at the "old technology" we love so much"”fifty years before the sky supposedly started falling thanks to tablets, Nooks, Kindles, etc.!

Heathorn's essay is occasionally quoted in commentary about books and their staying power in the face of "new and improved" technology.

Source: Pick of Punch, edited by Bernard Hollowood, 1963, Bradbury Agnew & Company Limited, London.

This gem has made the rounds again and again with a staying power as strong as the book itself. Here's an excerpt from a 2012 blog post on the 50th anniversary of its original publication. See the complete post online for the referenced cartoons. Dennis copied a few friends on his note, and their (sometimes sarcastic) responses are below. -Editor

If you've been around librarianship, or interested in books and book- and information-related technologies, for a while, you realize both of these touch on familiar themes and have a common antecedent, which you're probably also familiar with. It's a widely-circulated bit of humor, which typically starts off something like this:

Introducing the new Bio-Optical Organized Knowledge device, trade named B.O.O.K.

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology; no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.

But if you've been interested in these sort of issues for a really long time - say, twenty years or more - back before there were so many possible outlets on-line for this type of humor, you probably remember that whenever someone forwarded a version of this to a listerv or usenet group someone would usually point out that the original version of this piece was published in some humor magazine way back when.

I couldn't remember the source, and it took a bit of poking around and looking at different version of this piece, but I found it and, as the subject of this post indicates, yes, the original is 50 years old today. In its May 9, 1962 issue, Punch, a now-defunct British humor magazine, carried R. J. Heathorn's essay "Learn with BOOK":

The Internet Archive and other sources have parts of Punch digitized and freely available, but mainly the 19th century and early 20th century stuff, and I couldn't find a copy of the original on-line so, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of this piece, here it is in its entirety:

Fifty years. This gives you a idea of just how long the promise of some new device replacing the book has been a wet dream of technological prognosticators. And those two recent cartoons, and how widely-circulated all the variations of Heathorn's original essay still are today, all indicate how many people still feel we have a good ways to go to realize such prognostications, and that print books will still be around for a long, long time.

First, any man who enjoys "Punch" is a fellow of discerning tastes!

I've seen some variants of this essay, and always had the impression that they were written toward the end of end 20th century; I never would have imagined that the original was written as early as 1962!

Books have outlasted just about everything"”from the scythe to the DVD"”and I expect that they will be around long after much of today's whiz-bang technology is occupying space in the landfills of tomorrow!

There will be a learning curve.

Also, beware of political problems, such as electric power sources and Internet companies lobbying congressmen to outlaw the BOOK. Also, it does not appear that BOOK pages are lighted, so if you are in the woods at night a BOOK is useless. Also, I see nothing about support programs or upgrades. If I buy a BOOK and a mistake is made in it, will the publisher notify me right away.

I like to think the BOOK will catch on, but it may go the way of the hula hoop, Beanie Babies, and Cabbage Patch dolls.

I am afraid I am skeptical.