Library 2.0 searching for meaning

Hi everyone,

After reading through the WordPress entries today, I found that most of the passages I wanted to use had already been quoted. As a result, to find a short passage that gives meaning to the word text I decided to try my luck using the “Great Library 2.0”, i.e. Google Books, using the search terms “defining text”. I expected to find a deep, philosophical quote that would WOW you all. Well, I was indeed, surprised by the results. Of the top twenty hits, thirteen were in some way related to computer programming or desktop publishing software. I then tried a more refined search by looking for the exact phrase “defining text” (I did not use quotations the first time). This actually increased the number of computer related books to sixteen. “Define text” resulted in sixteen as IT results as well. Many searches later, I tried searching for “the origins of text”. Finally I started seeing some relevant results. However, there were still results for Unix and a text-mining computer application.

While the search results alone do not provide a passage that gives meaning to the word text, I think that the results shed light on the changing definition of the word text in the information age. The word text has become synonymous with the inventions of the digital age: text as a programming language, text as the basis for word processing, text as the foundation of the World Wide Web, etc. This was also stressed by O’Donnell and Engell when discussing the impacts that technology has had on education and on today’s youth, especially in regards to new language developing in text and e-mail. Technology not only redefines and revolutionizes text, it also reshapes the way interact with text and changes and reinvents the media through which we use it to communicate.

John