Book culture: The dialectic of the static and the dynamic

Abstract

The integrity of book culture is examined from the viewpoint of dialectical unity of the dynamic and the static: what ensures reader interest and long life of printed books in the historical time and what makes the mobile superstructure adapting the book culture to the changing environment and expanding its life. The author emphasizes that the book culture subject-object and subject categories, i.e. the humans and books/documents, take up the more stable and static positions. The book culture stability is manifested through its autonomy and persistence within the changing historical and cultural landscape (homeostasis, autopoiesis, and self-referencing). The dynamics is manifested in the processes of organization, disorganization and self-reorganization. The author substantiates that the World Wide Web enforces the fundamentals of the printed books and printed word; the functionality of libraries is to change in the future as they will be functioning both offline and online. These factors will influence the book culture and give rise to its new forms and contents. The technological era challenges the human ecosystem. The deep processes have been changing the book culture. However, the inevitability of the process must not be overestimated. Being analyzed and interpreted, the process can be managed.