THE COMMUNICATIONS CIRCUIT REVISITED' A s we enter the twenty-first century the spread of internet has aready concusivey shown that digita transmission of texts is here to stay. Indeed its significance is ony set to rise. Robert Darnton's communications circuit2 is a very usefu mode to study the interaction between the many agents invoved in the transmission of texts through society. As Darnton has suggested 'With minor adjustments it shoud appy to a periods in the history of the printed book'.' It wi be instructive to see how the mode is equipped to dea with a period that its maker had not intended it to serve. For one thing when Darnton first proposed his mode the internet had not yet estabished itsef as the popuar medium for textua transmission it has since become. For another it is by no means a foregone Author Pubisher Binder Purchasers Cubs Libraries v 75 Retaier The communications circuit This paper was originay deivered at the SHARP conference Mainz Juy 2000 2 R. Darnton 'What is the history of books?' in: Daedah Summer 98265-83; repr. in: R. Darnton The kiss of Lumourette. Refections in cuturahistory 07-352. am gratefu to the author for his permission to reproduce the diagram here. 3 Darnton The kiss of Lamourette -3. -
concusion that book historians shoud want to study the internet as another means of textua transmission-if for no better reason than that it begs the question how far to stretch the meaning of the term 'text'. O n the internet it incudes sti and moving images speech shopping transactions music: anything in fact that can trave in the form of bits.4 In this paper I shoud ike to examine the internet as a medium for textua transmission and to use Darnton's communications circuit as a conceptua mode to prevent an exporation of anaogies from degenerating into an incoherent ist of chance observations. Whie I shoud ike to use Darnton's basic concept instead of suggesting a sorts of adjustments to his we-estabished mode I shoud ike to start from scratch and sketch a number of versions of the mode that stress the conditions prevaiing at a particuar time rather than attempting to present a singe mode to fit a times. 'Sketch' is the operative word here. trust that the reader wi show some forbearance whie I concentrate on major historica deveopments with no apparent concern for subteties. The first version schematises some of the economic conditions that prevaied when the printing press first became estabished as the chief instrument for textua transmission. Scheme A shows a number of chaenges that presented themseves to the eary printers: The key areas to discuss here are production marketing and distri/â Â bution. Contrary to the word of manuscript reproduction which bookseer required a imited up-front investment since production took pace in response to known demand printing required a considerabe investment in paper and abour bookseer ^^-Ã Ã Ã (in addition to the origina investment in the basic equipment). The chaenge was to create a return on the money invested when books sod sowy. Whie in manuscript production the buyer was usuay a known quantity printing offered the chaenge of matching the much arger suppy with a demand that was harder to ocate even if potentia buyers were sure to exist. Today we ca the more or ess methodica way to meet this chaenge 'marketing'. In its crudest form marketing is precisey that: estimating whether the pubisher wi be capabe of reaching these potentia buyers in sufficient numbers to make the pubication worth his whie and devising strategies to actuay 0 Paper / ($^-(^=-< reach them. of print was of necessity ess oca than that of manuscripts. The distribution chaenge invoved the exigencies of physica transportation (with factors such as geographica distance and geopoitica impediments). It was met in part by the creation of a network of middemen: whoesae agents and feow printerbookseers. Over time the situation changed. Looking at the second haf of the twentieth century we find that the effects of the existing chaenges have been mitigated in various ways. This may be schematicay represented thus: By this time production costs have come down spectacuary as the resut of mechanisation improved techniques cheaper materias (especiay paper) thus vasty reducing book prices and investment eves. (The atter aso as a resut of the reduced turnaround time for a printrun.) Geographica and geopoitica factors in U transportation have sowy diminished in significance over time. Athough 0' Paper this was ess as a resut of deveopments within the book trade itsef than as a resut of the expanding economy and infrastructure at arge the nett resut is a vast reduction of the physica transportation chaenge in book distribution. This deveopment was accompanied by the phenomena spread of iteracy vasty increasing the number of potentia buyers in the oca market. This enabed the booktrade to become more oca and thus reduced the reative importance of the transportation cost factor even further. In fact the entire book distribution infrastructure is now a known quantity whose significance has been reduced to a percentage of the retai price: a high and unavoidabe but predictabe expense. Obviousy the same factors that have minimised the distribution chaenge have reduced the marketing chaenge. With the growing size of the oca market and the ever-increasing genera understanding we have of peope's media use (and consumption patterns in genera) marketing has become a great dea more mechanica. It may never become a predictabe factor in the same way as distribution but at east it is now a famiiar concept. In addition a wide variety of resources have been deveoped for matching suppy with demand such as cataogues advertising bibiographies and so on. Whie some of the eary chaenges have been mitigated by various historica deveopments at the same time new chaenges have presented themseves and other deveopments magnify existing chaenges. This resuts in the foowing version of the Darnton mode: 4 Cf. D.F. McKenzie's definition of 'texts' in his Panizzi ecture 'The book as an expressive form' in: Bibiography and the socioogy of texts. London 986. (The Panizzi ectures 985) 5. I sha return to this essay ater. 4 T H E COMMUNICATIONS CIRCUIT REVISITED
At the same time as marketing went through a process of simpipaper fication and streamining it be/ came more compex as a resut of the gradua change from a demand-driven to a suppy-driven book trade economy. As both the tite production and the number of potentia buyers expoded in the nineteenth century matching suppy with demand has become a greater chaenge. The widespread tendency of book trade speciaisation in the nineteenth century was one way to counter the effects of this chaenge. The printer ceased to se the books he prints for his own risk for he became a mere middeman to that party we now ca the pubisher who was a new appearance on the scene. This pubisher has had to dea with theprofessionaisation of authorship. Authors have as time goes by become increasingy interested in direct financia rewards (as against the indirect rewards of patronage or remuneration in copies or no remuneration at a of earier times). Not coincidentay the notion of inteectua property deveoped to become a major issue. Of course we can decide that the printer of the incinabe period in many respects resembes what we now ca a pubisher and we may ca him one. If we do so we can see that whie some of the chaenges facing the pubisher have changed dramaticay there are some that have essentiay remained the same from eary days when he was sti primariy a printer. So by what characteristics may we define the function of the pubisher? A definition such as that given by Cabter's gossary of the book is remarkaby unhepfu: 0 PUBLISHER: a person or a company in business to issue for sae to the pubic through bookseers books periodicas music maps etc. In the 6th century London trade the icence to print a work was assigned to a printer who was by impication the pubisher of it though sometimes in association with sponsors. Later in the same century bookseer-pubishersbecame more infuentia and commissioned printers to work for them. Pubishing as a business separate from bookseing dates from the eary 9th century. See F. A. Mumby & I. Norrie Pubishing and bookseing 5th ed. Cape 974; and Sir Staney Unwin The truth ab~ut~ubishing 8th ed. George Aien & Unwin ~ ~ 6. ~ Taking our cue from the constants in our discussion so far it makes sense to add the pubisher's concern with investment in the production of books: pubishing aways invoves tying up money in a ess iquid form. Secondy in order to recoup his invest- 5 Goister'sgossaryof the book. 2nd edn. London (etc.) 979. ment the pubisher is responsibe for seing the books whether this is to the reader/buyer or to bookseers. So distribution for sae is an ongoing concern which in turn impies the need for marketing. Certainy today's pubisher woud sti regard these three concerns as centra-though think the definition wi bear further eaboration. Notaby the pubisher's reationship to the author has not yet received any attention. In order to carify that reationship I think it wi be hepfu if we first ook at what the internet as a medium for the dissemination of text is capabe of offering by way of a soution to the chaenges that these concerns which we have identified as the core of pubishing present to pubishers. Eectronic text has the amazing characteristics that the origina can be mutipied without imit without oss of quaity and at negigibe cost. If an eectronic text is avaiabe on a network of inked computers (such as the internet) such mutipication can in addition take pace over any distance at the same negigibe cost. Just to ook at a text being made avaiabe esewhere on the internet is to make a faithfu and instant eectronic copy of it ocay at no cost to speak of.6 In terms of the pubisher's concerns which we just discussed the internet thus offers both a arge part of production (viz. mutipication) and distribution at negigibe cost. A communication circuit for the digita transmission of conventiona 'text' (the sort that used to be transmitted by means of print) in the internet era coud be schematicay presented as foows: In contrast with the production of printed books digita production for pubication on the internet does not invove mutipication but ony the editoria and formatting tasks. Mutipication is done by the cient-reader. If the costs of what in the print media we Pubisher ca production and distribution can in the case of the internet both be minimised this reduces the pubisher's investment to a much ower eve than in the case of print. (We are eft with saes to which we sha return.) Having studied some of the impications of this scheme of things we may at this point reca George Bernhard Shaw's diatribe against pubishers: 6 This does not take into account the necessary investment in hardware. In Western countries we tend to take this for granted but it remains a significant economic issue in arge parts of the word. Simiary this artice abstracts from such issues as poitica contro and other forms of censorship. 7 T H E C O M M U N I C A T I O N S C I R C U I T REVISITED
object to pubishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercia rascaity with artistic touchiness and pettishness without being either good business men or fine judges of iterature. A that is necessary in the production of a book is an author and a bookseer without any intermediate para~ite.~ Like some other Victorian authors notaby Ruskin Shaw of course became a weknown sef-pubisher. But with the hep of the internet the Shaws of this word can do even better. Since anyone who joins an Internet Service Provider to gain access to the internet is amost automaticay presented with a quota of disk space sufficient to host as many noves as even the most proific writer coud produce in a ifetime nothing is easier for an author than to circumvent both the pubisher and the bookseer. The possibiity resuts in the foowing variation on the communications circuit: r Productiian (investment) r This is much more than even G.B. Shaw coud have hoped for. Using the internet today's author can circumvent the pubisher the printer the distributor and the Author / bookseer as some adventurous peope have shown. The internet is thus capabe I by its ow cost and easy access I of 'democratising'-in the true sense of bringing to ordinary peope-the distribution of recorded text (and of further democratising production). It is perhaps usefu to pace this democratising characteristic of the internet as a medium in a onger perspective. Looking at the production-distribution-consumption chain we can identify two major democratising deveopments that took pace earier in the history of the book: In the fied of consumption: the tremendous increase in iteracy in the nineteenth century joined with much ower production costs which caused books to come within reach of everyone desirous to read; 2 In the fied of production: the widespread use of offset ithography from the I ~ ~ O S which speed the end of the monopoy of the typesetting and printing trades and enabed the reproduction of camera-ready copy produced with the crudest of means (it was foowed twenty years ater by the technica-if not necessariy typographicasophisticationof DeskTop Pubishing). 7 Bernard Shaw in a etter of 895 quoted in: R. Findater (ed.) Author!Author!. London 98404. V A N D E R WEEL 8 The simpified communications circuit is not ony a possibe scenario but for a great number of texts it is aready in operation. Take for exampe Project Gutenberg in a its nationa guises but the same goes for many out-of-copyright texts (and-egay or iegay~quitea number of copyright texts). However these texts without any physica substance have a probematic side to them. Aong with the physica book we have ost in eectronic texts the identica copy with identica pages in unchanging form that we have come to rey on for schoary use.' Whatever their advantages may be 'e-texts' are unstabe in form in content and even in existence. They may vanish without warning from one moment to the next. The use of this sort of texts is for finding passages for computer manipuation (indexing concordancing matching cutting and pasting text for quotation etcetera). And there is as we sha see aso the possibiity of using such texts in an e-book device. Not ony are there these drawbacks but there are aso numerous texts for which a communications circuit without the intervention of a pubisher is an unikey scenario. This appies to most texts within copyright and many if not most new texts being written. We might singe out two casses of texts both written by categories of authors who aspire to iving off the proceeds of their abour: iterary and schoary works. For these the shortened communication circuit is not feasibe. Not that it is not possibe for a young poet to pace his texts on the internet and wait for readers to come and find his poetry and even to set up a system that coud charge the prospective reader for the peasure of reading it. The crucia question is though why woud a prospective reader pay for the opportunity of reading a voume of poetry by an unknown author? The answer generay is: not because he is a promising and deserving young man but because a pubisher has decided to invest a sum of money in the pubication of it. Pacing a voume of poetry on? web site may theoreticay present an easy road to pubication: it is hardy going to attract arge numbers of paying r e a d e r s ~ o reven readers at a for how wi they find his work among the so many biion web pages on offer? If Stephen King was an unknown young poet rather than a bockbuster author he woud have been a good dea ess successfu in his recent sef-pubishing adventures and woud not have had much cause for caing himsef 'Big Pubishing's worst nightmare'.9 At first sight it woud appear a itte more ikey that a schoar woud pace his monograph on thirteenth-century French regiona stained gass' on his institution's web site and consider it pubished. On his institution's web site he stands a reasonabe chance of the book being found and he is after a ony interested in his monograph being read discussed and cited. He earns his money from his tenure so he can 8 Adobe's Portabe Document Format (.pdf) offers a soution to this probem at the cost of another probem often succincty paraphrased by the question 'Who owns your data?':.pdf fies are dependent on proprietary software for their continued readabiity. 9 At http://www.stephenking.com/downoad.htm (September 2000). 0 The exampe is from R. Darnton's account on his term on the editoria board of Princeton University Press 'Pubishing. A surviva strategy for academic authors' in: Idem The kiss o f Lamourette 94-03. 9 T H E C O M M U N I C A T I O N S CIRCUIT REVISITED
dispense with the charging system for he is not interested in seing copies. The crucia question here is why woud the university pay his tenure? The answer is: not because he has written a book which can be read on the internet but because it was good enough for it to have been found worthy of being pubished by a reputabe pubisher. In both these categories of text a pubisher can be seen to perform in addition to the tasks of investing in the production of books distributing books for sae and marketing of books the essentia task of seecting the books to be pubished. Uncanonica texts have no automatic status and have yet to be 'fitered'. This important task of the pubisher I woud suggest comes cose to defining his reationship to the author which was mentioned earier. In retrospect it is possibe to recognise that the roe of the pubisher has been edging in that direction for a ong time. Especiay since the nineteenth century the pubisher's roe as a gatekeeper-to guarantee quaity-has gained increasing significance. Not that the pubisher necessariy performs that roe consciousy: for him seection is primariy connected with the decision what to invest his name and money in; seection is merey the unintended coroary. Through the seection task of pubisher (and bookseer)" paradoxicay the accessibiity of texts is increased as we as diminished. As we as seecting on saeabiity (both pubisher and bookseer wi choose what they think a sufficient number of peope woud actuay pay money to read) they create order in what is pubished for exampe through the nature of their imprint. So for the benefit of such cases as poets and schoars-but the same goes for the majority of authors-the pubisher shoud be brought back in demanding a return to scheme D: I ~ u even t though we have found that the pubisher is indispensabe for many even most categories of textã de moishing the Shavian utopia that seemed for a moment so tantaisingy cose-what remains in this scenario are the possibe advantages of owcost production and distribu- I I that is we can sove the probems associated with the eectronic form of the tion-if book. The internet is a new medium and it is difficut to predict how its economy wi deveop but we can make a few informed guesses at how these possibe advantages in Reviewing too coud be argued to be a form of gatekeeping that increases accessibiity by raising pubic awareness of the existence of certain tites. cheap production and distribution may be expoited by pubishers.2at this moment there are two ikey avenues that pubishers might pursue. One is the e-book direction and the other printing on demand (P.0.D.). Both are incidentay aready practised in a imited way.i3 The e-book option entais an a-eectronic soution whereby the buyer downoads a text from the pubisher's site to his e-book. Some of the probems inherent in eectronic texts wi be soved for exampe by the fact that the pubisher safeguards the continued existence of the text (in which he has a vested interest) by maintaining a database of texts (now often caed a 'textbase') on the internet. In the e-book scenario the reader buys a itte gadget to read the book he has purchased. (Current e-book devices cannot hod the proverbia cande to a rea book yet but that wi get better.) The printing on demand option coud entai the eectronic downoad of the text of a book from the pubisher's internet site or virtua bookshop to a oca printing device which coud be ocated in the equivaent of today's bookshop or a copyshop or in a supermarket where a fuy fedged printed book compete with fu-coour cover coud be picked up. This scenario offers decentraised production taiored to the exact demand obviating distribution costs and bringing investment eves down virtuay to the proportions of the manuscript period. It is aso capabe of soving a of the probems inherent in eectronic texts isted above for the buyer wi own an od-fashioned book. Both scenarios hod out the promise of ower investment in production and distribution and thus cheaper books. (Though the reaity so far is that eectronic books se for a price ony marginay ower than that of ordinary books.)4 And significanty the two scenarios are not ony fuy compatibe they are fuy compementary: the same eectronic source text can be downoaded to an e-book device and remain virtua for the entire transmission circuit and it can be downoaded to a remote printer for a physica incarnation. Video recorders are often designated as 'time-shifting devices' by media mogus. By anaogy the use of the internet in pubishing coud be caed one huge 'pace-shifting device'. We have so far concentrated on the ow-cost production and distribution potentia offered by the digita transmission of text over the internet. In addition the use of meta information wi greaty aid the task of matching suppy with demand. 'Metadata' is the concept of adding information about information comparabe to the way a ibrary record gives information about a book that may be found in a particuar ibrary. The difference in the digita environment is that the metadata are actuay 2 It may be objected that the cost of deveoping and maintaining websites is too high to speak of 'cheap production and distribution'. This may be true in the very short term as pubishers are making the necessary adjustments. The rea savings shoud become apparent soon. 3 A third paid access to web sites might we become feasibe for especiay shorter texts as digita payment of sma sums becomes easier. It is outside the scope of this artice to discuss the internet as a distribution channe for conventiona printed books through e-commerce. 4 The economics of the two systems are a itte different in that P.0.D. books carry the cost of materia productionper copy whie e-books require a (modest) up-front investment in hardware. 2 THE COMMUNICATIONS CIRCUIT REVISITED
part of the document to which they pertain. Metadata may be indexed by search engines and they can make a crucia contribution to making information traceabe on the internet. The judicious use of metadata thus offers a great potentia for pubishers' marketing efforts. Once these internet scenarios are impemented on any significant scae they coud pace very different emphasis in our definition of what a pubisher does. They woud pace a great dea ess emphasis on investment and must therefore pace proportionay more emphasis on gatekeeping in the form of seection. But we have aready observed that the pubisher carries out his seection function not as a conscious task in its own right but as the natura consequence of the investment he makes. And if the investment is minimised what basis remains for his seection task? There is something strange about the phenomenon of eectronic textua transmission for exampe in respect of the possibiity to keep making imitess copies without oss of quaity and at so itte cost. Conventiona economic thinking has taught us that without scarcity things have no vaue. The 'od economy' has aways concentrated on making more units per product at a ower unit cost than the competition: the achievement of economies of scae. In the 'new economy' the emphasis ies esewhere: for exampe on innovation and new ideas. In the case of text eectronic transmission (especiay via the internet) has made the conventiona concept of scarcity argey meaningess. Something is either accessibe in which case it can be mutipied without imit without oss of quaity and at negigibe cost or it is not accessibe. Scarcity consists soey in imited accessibiity not in the finite avaiabiity of produced items. So at the very east the price-making process which is traditionay based on materia scarcity (the finiteness of materia avaiabiity) must change substituting an artificia finiteness of access. But perhaps the economic rues themseves wi need to change as a resut. I have drawn a fairy sharp distinction for pubication on the internet between texts in the pubic domain on the one hand and texts designed for the expoitation of the inteectua property rights that reside in them on the other. We can now ook back and observe in retrospect the strong paraes with the incunabe period. Most of the eariest printings concerned books that might be said to have been in the pubic domain. It took time for the more specuative entrepreneuria cimate to deveop in which printers and contemporary iving authors coud find each other. Initiay authors were not rushing to be pubished in print.5 Printers were often hard put to find texts to print and turned to editing and transating existing ones. Gheraert Leeu for 5 H. Peij 'Literatuur en drukpers. De eerste vijftig jaar' in: Nederandse iteratuur van de ate Middeeeuwen. Utrecht 99037-57. Peij who has done much to chart the movement into print of Low Countries iterature of the ate Midde Ages suggests that this tendency was ess pronounced for southern Europe (France and Itay). See his 'De betekenis van de beginnende drukpers voor de ontwikkeing van de Nederandse iteratuur in Noord en Zuid' in: Spektamr 2 (99z) 227-263. It woud be fascinating to see the resuts of a more wide-ranging survey comparing iterature with other genres and comparing the situation in the Low Countries to that in other parts of Europe. exampe prepared safe popuar vernacuar editions of cassic texts in prose rather than verse transations aimed at the new readership for print (e.g. his prose edition of Reinaert de Vos of 479 transated by Caxton and pubished in Engand in ~8)." Thomas van der Noot in Brusses was particuary daring in his exporation of the opportunities offered by the new medium activey requesting from authors he knew copy of a kind he suspected to be commerciay viabe.i7 In a these cases the initiative for pubication ay with the printers. It can thus be observed that the impetus for deveoping the new medium came from the 'owners': the printer-pubishers. Simiary we can see that the origina 'owners' of the internet-which after the miitary was the schoary communitygrasped the new medium to do precisey the same: they made avaiabe cheap (free) editions of everything that was in the pubic domain: the canon. It wi take time for an economy (or economies) of the digita text to deveop. Barring exceptions ike Stephen King authors who are trying to make money from their work are aso not rushing to pubish their work on the internet-yet. But in the same way as authors had to discover the economy of print so with the hep of internet-entrepreneurs authors wi eventuay discover the economy of the internet. Where the comparison breaks down is in the fact that contemporary schoars did not have to bring the canon to the digita medium in an entrepreneuria spirit: they made their money in tenured positions at the universities. This focuses on the very different economy that the internet is sti subject to today. The internet has its roots in a not-for profit environment usuay succincty paraphrased by the 'information wants to be free' sogan. We do not know for how much onger. It is ony recenty that commerce has begun to take a firm grip on the internet and the way its economy might deveop is in the ap of the gods. But certainy the economic basis for information transmitted over the internet is a very different one from the one that governs the print word as we have just seen and it is conducive to the 'information wants to be free' spirit. The print medium has often for shorter or onger periods in its history harboured exciting possibiities such as stereotyping which was first deveoped a ong time before it became economicay feasibe unti the twentieth century.8 O r take offset printing which was first practised as eary as 875 amost as soon as the invention of the rotary press had joined that of ithography and photography9but did not be6 See P.J.A. Franssen '7 augustus 479: Gerard Leeu votooit te Gouda het drukken van Die hystorie van Reynaen die vos' in: M.A. Schenkeved-van der Dussen [e.a.] (ed.) Nederandse iteratuur. Een geschiedenis. Groningen 99309-5. 7 Peij 'Literatuur en drukpers' 236-237. am indebted to my coeague Berry Dongemans at Leiden University for pointing me to exampes in this section. 8 Phiip Gaske credits Johann Muer a German pastor iving in the Netherands with the invention in the eary eighteenth century: A new introduction to bibiography. Oxford 98520 and even earier dates have been suggested. See K. Gnirrep 'Standing type or stereoype in the seventeenth century' in: Quaerendo 27 (997) 9-45. 9 See M. Twyman Printing ZJJO-330.An iustrated history of its deveopment and uses in Engand. London x97057. 23 THE COMMUNICATIONS CIRCUIT REVISITED
come the dominant printing method ti the ate 970s~when photographic typesetting had been perfected enabing the convenient origination of two-dimensiona type. For a we know it sti harbours possibiities that no one has yet reaised. But back in the eary days of print one of these possibiities was aso the specuative entrepreneuria expoitation of the medium which needed to be deveoped in the course of the first century of printing. Another of these dormant promises was that of the rise of the professiona author whose success coud be made in his own ifetime as a resut of the seection practised by the pubisher. One of these professiona authors was Shaw who ater in his ife was much mider about pubishers than he was when he wrote the passage quoted above actuay conceding that 'the wonder is that the pubishers do so much to keep up the prestige of iterature... at their own cost when trash woud pay them better.'" And he had ampe occasion to be gratefu to them despite the experience of having sixty or so pubishers in turn reject his nove^.^' When Swan Sonnenschein (whose ist ater became part of Aien & Unwin) after pubishing a nove by Shaw suggested that 'the author woud do better to write pays'22 we can see that crucia roe of seection at work. However if the function of the pubisher has been narrowed down to that of a gatekeeper is it not possibe that this is a too narrow basis? If it requires so itte materia investment woud it not be easy for that function to be taken over by another party? Take the case of schoary pubishing where the rea gatekeepers are not the pubishers but the schoar's peers who aready perform their task free of charge anyway. Not ony that but the mechanism through which schoars benefit from being pubished is not that they get paid royaties but that they get promoted. In other words the gatekeeping function in schoary pubishing coud we be one-way: keeping bad schoarship out of the door whie readers coud be et in free of charge-the more the merrier in fact. In these circumstances what woud stop a group of schoars setting up their own pubishing house? This woud again provide a parae with the eary days of print when the 'owners' of the medium became the first entrepreneurs by editing or even writing new kinds of books for a new reading pubic. The answer of course is: nothing at east in principe and it is actuay happening. In practice the sow adjustment to the new economy and the new way of thinking it necessitates is sti a barrier. But this is certainy going to change. 20 Quoted in Findater Author! Author! 40. 2 See H. Pearson Bernhard Shaw. A biography. London 987 59. 22 Quoted in: I. Nome (ed.) Mumby'spubishing and bookseing in the twentieth century London 9825. CONCLUSIONS: 'THE INFLUENCE O F JOYCE O N STERNE"~ In order to try and understand the media revoution that we are witnessing at this moment there are many exciting ways in which we can deve deepy into the history of the book to study the changes that various inventions in the fied of book production have wrought. Conversey I hope I have iustrated that by observing the phenomena that are occurrring in front of our eyes at this very moment we can gain a fresh perspective on many historica phenomena. Don McKenzie regards bibiography as a discipine that 'studies texts as recorded forms and the processes of their transmission incuding their production and reception'. In the first of his Panizzi ectures he states that he defines 'texts' to incude verba visua ora and numeric data in the form of maps prints and music of archives of recorded sound of fims videos and any computer-stored information everything in fact from epigraphy to the atest forms of discography. And he goes on to say that 'There is no evading the chaenge which those new That is a chaenge indeed and we may prefer not to widen our forms have ~reated."~ discipine quite so far as that. But he righty intimates that eectronic deveopments in textua transmission must be regarded as a natura extension of book history. woud concur with him and suggest that we shoud not evade the chaenge of considering the history of the book as a continuum from manuscript to eectronic textua transmission in an inteectua history context. Just as Robert Darnton suggests that book history shoud be interdiscipinary in order for the 'parts' of individua research to 'take on their fu significance'' a case can (and I beieve must) be made for book history in the narrow sense to be subsumed by the history of textua transmission. Such an incusive notion of our discipine stretching from the eariest to the most recent written communication woud enabe contrastive diachronic approaches which coud generate greater insights into the nature of phenomena occurring at any of the periods. 23 The tite of the inaugura ecture at the University of Utrecht of Professor Peter de Voogd. Amsterdam 99. 24 McKenzie 'The book as an expressive form' 4-5. 25 Darnton The kiss of Lamourette i n. 25 THE COMMUNICATIONS CIRCUIT REVISITED