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As Edward Tenner writes with respect to the summer Rare Book School at the University of Virginia:

While the demise of printed books may be exaggerated—or so I argued here—the sense of crisis that began in the 1980s had a paradoxical effect on book studies. Once the printed object was no longer indispensable for the transmission of texts and images, it started to take on a new interest as a physically unique object, especially from the time before mass production when every copy of every book was different.

And further:

Is the Rare Book School just a tenuous survivor of a dying medium? I prefer to consider it, to the contrary, as part of the vanguard of neo-analog culture.

I appreciate Mr. Tenner’s thoughts and his coined term of “neo-analog culture.” As physical books move away from being vehicles of information to unique objects waiting to be discovered, I would like to understand the true motivation behind the rediscovery of the analog printed object through the push-back of digital media. Bibliophiles have always put a great value on rare editions of books—more as an artifact to be collected. But, what is described in the source article is more akin to a cultural study of human interaction in the form of the hand-crafted printed object. Is the motivation sentimentality? Nostalgia? Historicism? A pursuit of authenticity?

Is it a far more authentic experience to read the analog form of a book than to read its digital version on a Kindle or my NOOK Color? Is the digital medium of electronic publications nothing more than a simulacrum of the analog physical experience? As Michael Suarez, who runs the school, states:

I actually think that the digital is making us much more aware of the form of the printed book. And so I think this is a moment of rare opportunity, rather than a moment of great crisis.

Does absence beget presence? As Mr. Tenner implies, this push towards the printed object goes beyond the saving of a dying medium. It indicates a cultural shift. But, if this neo-analog culture is to be sustainable, its goal needs to be objective experience, not subjective. Otherwise, it will just be an exercise in kitsch.

See University of Virginia program celebrates the embattled book.