Lost in the blogosphere : Excellent read in Sunday’s Boston Globe

Sven Birkerts, editor of the journal Agni, published at Boston University, and the author of several books, including “The Gutenberg Elegies” and, most recently, “Reading Life: Books for the Ages, has an excellent article in Sunday’s Boston Globe on literary blogging. Just as legal blogs are impacting traditional law reviews, literary blogs are eroding traditional literary review, with the result being a plus for all.

…I am also paranoid enough — or maybe forward-looking enough — to imagine the day when magazines and newspapers have begun to dwindle away and the world of text has shifted dominantly to screen. Indeed, I would say we are right now at what feels like a point of vital balance, and those of us involved with literary journalism and book-reviewing live with the sense of a balance teetering.

In the past few years, as revenue flees from print on paper, newspapers have worried their declining circulation figures and have had to make cutbacks. We’ve seen shrinkage and reallocation of space for book reviews at the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even here, in the city where America’s literary culture was born, at The Boston Globe (which cut a page from the Ideas section last year and reduced the Books pages).

Birkerts goes on to analyze the broader and more important question,

…[I]f we accept that these are the early symptoms of a far-reaching transformation, is what does this transformation mean for books, for reviewing, for the literary life? early symptoms of a far-reaching transformation, is what does this transformation mean for books, for reviewing, for the literary life?

Law being a little slower than industries hasn’t reaching this teetering point, but it will. ALM was just purchased by a European company with a heavy digital publishing bent. Law professors are publishing blogs which challenge traditional law reviews in timeliness and immediate peer review. Blogging lawyers are being given a voice never before there.

Read Birkerts article and articles on blogs like it that pop up in Sunday papers across the country. They’ll expand your horizons as to where legal review and commentary is headed.

Technorati Tags: new media