First among the factors
affecting the book's role is that the rhythm of renewal and
conversion requires a medium that can keep pace with change.
Prior to the breakdown of the former Soviet Union and the Eastern
Block, the majority of books on politics, sociology, economics,
and culture pertinent to that part of the world became useless
from one day to the next as events and whims rendered their
content meaningless. Once the Eastern Block started to unravel,
even periodicals could not keep pace with events. All around the
world, strikes, various forms of social activism, political
debates, successive reorganizations, new borders, and new leaders
contradicted the image of stability settled in the books of
scholars and even in the evaluations issued by intelligence
agencies.
Not only politics required rewriting. Books on physics,
chemistry, mathematics, computing, genetics, and mind and brain
theory have to be rewritten as new discoveries and technologies
render obsolete facts associated with past observations published
as eternal truth. In some cases, the books were rewritten on
tape, as visual presentations impossible to fit in sentences or
between book covers, or on CD-ROM. More recently, books are
being rewritten as Internet publications or full-fledged Web
sites that can easily be kept current. Photocopies of selected
pages and articles already substitute for the book on the desks
of students, professors, scholars, and researchers.
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