3c. Formal aspects of the book
One formal aspect of the book is that it is more than can be consumed in a single visual event. This distinguishes a book from a pamphlet, which could conceivably be seen in its entirety by a reader holding the pamphlet open while standing in front of a mirror. The reader could read the inside two pages of the pamphlet, and could at see and possibly read the backwards-appearing front and back covers of the pamphlet, without having to manipulate the pamphlet further. A book has a more complex form — one that, no matter how simple the content, can never be seen all at the same time.
Translated into the electronic environment, this might suggest a distinction such as that between a single webpage and a website (which is a collection of web pages). Although it would be ugly, a book may be transformed into a single webpage. There is nothing inherent in the form of the book that demands it be translated into a multi-page website.
This may or may not suggest a genuine problem. If one holds that the e-book is inherently more complex than its print counterpart, then the above seems to provide support for their argument. If, on the other hand, one is not inclined to view the print book as less complex, then she might point to the inadequacy of the analogy (for one thing, the ratio of webpage to website is not comparable to the relationship between pamphlet and book).
In addition to length, there are other formal properties typically associated with books. There is, for instance, the cover — the upper and lower boards, and the spine — which plays a role in communicating the contents. We say that a book cannot be judged by its cover precisely because the natural human response to covers is to use them to judge books. Designers use this tendency to communicate various kinds of information, such as genre, author and title, publisher, and often something about the narrative content. Immediately beneath the cover are the pages that constitute the front matter. These reiterate in more standardized formats some of the suggestions made by the cover, and provide additional information such as the metadata required for cataloguing, as well as an outline of the contents.
Once we enter the body of the text, we address a number of issues relating to formal properties. If we begin with only words in a sequence, we see significant layers of design that go into building the main text. Conventions of page layout leave extra room, for instance, for holding the book without obscuring any text, as well as for binding. Page numbers are sequential, so that the pages can be easily accessed non-sequentially using a table of contents or an index. Sequential page numbers also orient the reader as to roughly how far along she is in the book.
Experimentally developed over centuries, these conventions are now subject to remediation in the digital environment. We have an opportunity to reconsider them, and to decide which are important enough to keep and which have become irrelevant. We have also the chance to extend and elaborate on the features that are most valuable, reconceiving them in ways impossible in print. Electronic searching is one such enhancement; hyperlinking is another.
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