Noses in Books: Orientation, Immersion, and Paratext

Abstract

Paratextual aids to reading in medieval codex books, printed codex books, and Kindle ebooks are compared. Medieval scribes designed paratextual elements that enhanced diverse reading practices, from lectio divina to scholarly textual study. Printers adopted and standardized many elements of paratext, and contemporary readers depend on these elements to navigate printed books. Because familiar paratextual aids to reading are less visible in Kindle ebooks, readers find those ebooks harder to navigate. Development of effective ebook paratext must take into account the needs and practices of readers.

The secret lives of ebooks: A paratextual analysis illuminates a veil of usage statistics

“…Based on changes and ‘distortions’ of the reading experience in each platform, including the addition of advertising, the loss of color, and page numbers replaced by location numbers that change with the screen resolution, McCracken asserts that ‘entirely new systems of reading and textuality are engendered with e-readers’ and that these platforms ‘produce substantive textual transformation’ (2013: 108–109). Northcutt Malone (2015) compares the Kindle interface to the paratext of the codex, in terms of orientation and readability. She notes that this platform obscures the front matter of the book, and even hides the page headers, so that people tend to forget the authors and titles of the books they are reading.…”

Finding the Marginal in Marginalia: The Importance of Including Marginalia Descriptions in Catalog Entries

“… 26. Cynthia Northcutt Malone, “Noses in Books: Orientation, Immersion, and Paratext,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews , 40, no. 1 (2015): 17–28. …”