Skim, Grok, Master: Multi-scale Reading and the Zoomable Book
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Abstract
How can we help readers who are interested in some, but not all, of a book?
The value in most books is distributed unevenly. Because we don’t always need all of what an author has to say, we often pick other media forms that deliver their payload more concisely. Giving readers new ways to “info triage” individual books, as well as larger collections, can help increase the attention long-form publications receive.
My talk is about a new document design pattern that facilitates high velocity, modularized, multi-scale reading. Called “skim/grok/master” it:
- services modern reading habits;
- preserves the high value of an author’s sustained thinking; and
- injects a measure of non-disruptive delight into the book reading experience
The system imposes no fundamental re-architecting of a traditional book’s compositional units or overall structure. Instead it uses a lightweight addition of some indexical annotation, paired with some new presentation viewports, to enable a new kind of reading. The open web, and BiB V’s focus on evolving standards, is an ideal venue to showcase different skim/grok/master implementation models, given the design freedom HTML5 offers in comparison to proprietary e-reading systems.
