What a big year for me! Being a library from the B.C.E days, this was such a great experience! Making the jump into books about digital and books in digital form was a completely new opportunity for me. It really took me out of my box, a box that I was not prepared to get out of, but glad I did to further enjoy my time in this class and to maximize the amount I have gained and learned.

At the very last moment, on Sunday, I changed my topic for my final paper. Why? When doing my research I found myself more drawn to illustrations that contibuted to the work as a whole rather than take away from it. This is why I wanted to write about the benefits of pictures in children’s books and research the different types of illustrated children’s books. I also was able to collect a lot more on the topic, than my previous topic of books tranformed into pieces of art.

-Alexandria

My final project has been interesting for me. While I am glad I am going back to my library days and using actual, tangible books in my project, it is also book as art, which means a lot of the times the conent is destroyed. I struggled for a lot of years about the burnging of my books and now I am writing about essentially “destroyed” books. It is quite ironic.

-Alexandria

Because this class serves both the english major and the digital studies minor, we have a special opportunity to hear from both ends of the spectrum in regards to this digital vs. print discussion. I find a lot of value in both and cannot say I am one-sided on the issue. I am a digital studies minor and I am not great at finding hidden context or references, so hyperlinks and more insight is helpful for me, but I see a lot of value and have a lot of admiration for those who excel in close-reading and can dive into the materal on a much different level. I have an extreme appreciation for our class discussions because of the chance to hear from so many perspectives and personalities.

I AM SO GLAD PROFESSOR WHALEN PROVIDED US WITH THIS ARTICLE. Not only does it speak volumes to me because of my love for print text and discomfort with technology, but I think it highlights the value of the tangible artifact itself. The pages can be just as much art as the text on/inside them can. That is part of the reason I was so destroyed when my books were destroyed in the fire. I am also excited because this is the topic of my paper!!! So now I can add another FANTASTIC reference to my bibliography!

-Library of Alexandria

As we witness the transformation of book reading from print to digital, a lot of mixed emotions come with it for me. I am not usually old-school in my way of thinking, but so much of my day-to-day assignments, interactions, etc. are completed through a phone or a computer. I think print allows me to escape that world for a little. When I read books digitally, they are grouped into that clump of everything I do online. Print books keep away from the chaos. At the same time digital books offer opportunities that print books never could, like links to definitions, related essays, and essentially all the hyperlinks that Katherine Hayles discussed in the hyper reading portion of the How we Read article. I am conflicted. Luckily, we still currently have access to both.

-Alexandria

I found Zotero extremely helpful and not helpful at all at the same time. I think accumulating all of our sources into one are is beneficial because it allows us to exchange information and obtain more references in learning about our topics. The downfall is I find myself feeling interested in different directions of the topics. I originally wanted to do books as different art forms…. now I do not know. I want to stick in that theme, but possibly make it more specific, like the book to movie idea is. While using Zotero pushes me towards the end product it also has stirred a lot of different interests in me. I do not know if this is a good thing or not.

-Alexandria

I have decided that my topic for my final paper will be books as art…. beyond the actual content of the book, like the Wizard of Oz pop-up book. I wanted to return back to my roots. All semester I have been immersing myself in the digital world of books. I am excited to invest some time into actual, tangible books because that is what I truly love the most and I have missed it.

-Alexandria

The Wizard of Oz pop-up book sold me!!!! I knew from the second I opened it up and witnessed the creativity that I wanted to dive deeper into that area of art inside and created through books. I am excited to explore the arts forms in which books take shape through different artists and styles.

-Alexandria

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing excerpts of everyone’s novel and their creative reasoning behind it in class today. I wish I could say I had a favorite, but they were so unique in their own way I do not think I could choose. It is actually quite funny, I realized when I sat down from sharing my work that I stopped one line short. The next line after I stopped reading is as pictured below and is so fitting for this class and was created with this class in mind. I just found the combination extremely ironic and wish I had shared one more line, so here it is!