Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Matthew Battles

discuss

The Library Beyond the Book

This event includes a book signing

Date

Sep
5
Friday
September 5, 2014
3:00 PM ET

Location

Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

This event is free; no tickets are required.

Harvard Book Store welcomes faculty director of the metaLAB at Harvard University JEFFREY T. SCHNAPP and associate director MATTHEW BATTLES for a discussion of The Library Beyond the Book.

With textbook readers and digital downloads proliferating, it is easy to imagine a time when printed books will vanish. Such forecasts miss the mark, argue Jeffrey Schnapp and Matthew Battles. Future bookshelves will not be wholly virtual, and libraries will thrive—although in a variety of new social, cultural, and architectural forms. Schnapp and Battles combine deep study of the library’s history with a record of institutional and technical innovation at metaLAB, a research group at the forefront of the digital humanities. They gather these currents in The Library Beyond the Book, exploring what libraries have been in the past to speculate on what they will become: hybrid places that intermingle books and ebooks, analog and digital formats, paper and pixels.

Libraries have always been mix-and-match spaces, and remix is their most plausible future scenario. Speculative and provocative, The Library Beyond the Book explains book culture for a world where the physical and the virtual blend with ever increasing intimacy.

Jeffrey T. Schnapp
Jeffrey T. Schnapp

Jeffrey T. Schnapp

Jeffrey T. Schnapp is the faculty director of metaLAB at Harvard University. 

Matthew Battles
Matthew Battles

Matthew Battles

Matthew Battles is associate director of metaLAB (at) Harvard. Having written for Aeon, The Atlantic, and Orion among others, he is the author of six books, of which Tree is the most recent.

Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 2 minutes

As you exit the station, reverse your direction and walk east along Mass. Ave. in front of the Cambridge Savings Bank. Cross Dunster St. and proceed along Mass. Ave for three more blocks. You will pass Au Bon Pain, JP Licks, and TD Bank. Harvard Book Store is located at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton St.

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FAQ:

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Event Series: Friday Forum

Harvard Book Store's Friday Forum series takes place on Friday afternoons during the academic year as a way to highlight scholarly books in a wide range of fields, with a particular focus on local scholars.

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