After watching Trettien’s video, a simplistic definition of digital book history would be “book history done using digital tools and methods” (8:08).
I am most drawn to approaches that study the substrate, such as bio-archaeology. This appeals to me because I personally think it is fascinating how different localities develop different substrates because of necessity.
Trettien’s terminology helped me to understand digital book history a bit better because she used both analog and digital examples to reinforce the meaning of each term.
For my final project, I plan on researching the history of the graphic novel, and particularly the forms that gave rise to Japanese manga. I haven’t actually found any sources for this as of yet, but I am interested in this topic because I have always been fascinated by the medium.
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Hi Dan
I agree with you. Trettien uses of both analog and digital examples to clarify the meaning of each phrase, her terminology helped me understand the history of the digital book better. Also looking forward to your presentation on the final project, sounds very interesting.
Dan, I’m really interested in this project and I think there’s a lot to mine there! Here’s a resource to get you started: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/c.php?g=1037230&p=7543624
Also, here are some historical materials in Japanese if you want to play with Google Translate: https://kawasaki.iri-project.org/