In Chapter 4 of his book, Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print, Jay David Bolter (2001) discusses the rise of the visual and its impact on text.\u00a0 As a Teacher-Librarian the rise of the visual in our culture is particular interest to me.\u00a0 As our post-print generation moves through the education system we are being challenged to redefine the nature of libraries and their role in education.\u00a0 In this commentary I view Bolter\u2019s work through the lens of my profession.<\/p>\n
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Of immediate interest in Bolter\u2019s work is the notion that images on the World Wide Web dominate but images on the printed page are contained by the text that surrounds them.\u00a0 There is an element of control in print culture that is not evident in web-based applications.\u00a0 Specifically mentioned is the way that professional journals and other scholarly texts surround the images they permit and supervise the reading of the image.<\/p>\n
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Bolter points out that even when images dominate in scholarly text there is little doubt that the text is in a position of control.\u00a0 He refers to this use of image as \u201ctextural\u201d.\u00a0 This notion gives rise to the question of whether images in web-based works don\u2019t often provide this same function.\u00a0 When I think of the way that I, my colleagues and my students use images in the products of our learning it seems that they often serve to give texture to the work.\u00a0 Images are frequently included after text is written or are accompanied by explanatory text.\u00a0 This may indicate that our use of image is still in its infancy to some extent.\u00a0 Are those of us born of a predominantly print-based culture slow to learn how to harness the power of the visual?<\/p>\n
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Bolter questions what is happening to print and prose in what he calls the, \u201clate age of print\u201d (2001) and suggests that text is morphing itself to both compete with and incorporate the proliferation of images and their inherent cultural power.\u00a0 In the school library this is evident in the rise of graphic novelizations of classic children\u2019s books such as the Hardy Boys series by Scott Lobdell and Paulo Henrique.\u00a0 Text in these graphic novels is far less than in the original book versions and are accompanied by images that serve to both complement and supplement the story.\u00a0 Works such as the ground-breaking, The adventure of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick offer a combination of text and stand-alone images to tell the story.\u00a0 Additionally, many text-based works now offer web-based links to additional story features and activities based on the books.\u00a0 These applications are largely visual and demonstrate the turning tide children\u2019s literature.\u00a0 An excellent example of this is the 39 Clues series, by Scholastic Press.<\/p>\n
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Interesting too is the suggestion that this remediation of print is born out of both enthusiasm and fear.\u00a0 Change is generally a feared state of being and as a Teacher-Librarian I am constantly aware of the combination of these reactions to changes in our formerly print-based culture among my professional colleagues.\u00a0 While some embrace and endorse the changes in literacy there are a great number who wish to stem the tide of change in order to maintain their sense of purpose.<\/p>\n
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Teacher-Librarians, in their quest to maintain the sanctity of the physical library space and all that it contains, are also uniquely challenged by the fact, as Bolter explains, that text is now competing, \u201cfor a reader\u2019s attention with a variety of pictorial elements, any or all of which may be in motion\u201d (2001).\u00a0\u00a0 This increasingly visual world with its cultural expectation of high quality images, special effects and incredible animations makes capturing the attention of today\u2019s students very difficult.\u00a0 Students are often witnessing works of text as image-based before they discover that the material existed in a print-based form long before it was released as a full-length feature movie.\u00a0 There have been a number of films based on children\u2019s literature in the last few years.\u00a0 What Teacher-Librarians are commenting on is how often these movies serve as the first introduction to the material for most children.\u00a0 Eragon<\/em>, Cloudy with a chance of meatballs<\/em>, Where the wild things are<\/em>, and Hoot<\/em> are some of the many movie scripts derived from books.\u00a0 Many of my professional colleagues criticize these movies and what they perceive as their detrimental effects on reading.\u00a0 However, I often notice in my own practice that these movies often lead my students to seek out the books that the movie plots came from.\u00a0 In this way the text seems to be benefited by the image and draws a new generation of consumers of print into the fold.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The breakout of the visual will undoubtedly have significant impacts on many areas of our culture.\u00a0 This impact will not escape the school library and its keepers.\u00a0 Teacher-Librarians are at a cultural turning point.\u00a0 They will need to find a way to adapt and manage as text changes in the wake the rise of the visual.\u00a0 How well they will fare remains to be seen.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n References:<\/p>\n Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print<\/em> [2nd<\/sup> edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Chapter 4 of his book, Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print, Jay David Bolter (2001) discusses the rise of the visual and its impact on text.\u00a0 As a Teacher-Librarian the rise of the visual in our culture is particular interest to me.\u00a0 As our post-print generation moves through the education system […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":576,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4974],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1689,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/1689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}