Interesting…with all my talk on this site about digital scholarship, multimedia, visual literacy, etc. I find myself still paying more attention to text on the Web than any other format. In the past hour of browsing through entries on bloglines I’ve come across a dozen or more postings where the content is either a podcast or a video. I mark those for later listening/viewing, though I know it’s likely to be weeks if ever before I get back to those non-text sources.

Text does have some very important characteristics that are not replicated in other media. Text can be easily skimmed. We know have “to eyeball” a page of text in order to extract some meaning or, at least, to determine if it’s worth reading in-depth. How do we do the same with a podcast or a 10 minute video file?

Even though I love my shiny blue iPod mini, I never download podcasts of lectures, speeches, etc. Of course, I’ve never been into talk radio either, so maybe it’s just me. But if I still had that hour+ commute like I did in Miami, then maybe I would be loading my iPod up every morning.

Rather than watching a 10 minute interview with someone in QuickTime, I prefer just to read a transcript or, even better, an edited summary of the interview. Now, maybe if I had one of those fancy new video iPods….

It may just be personal preference or prejudice (though I’ve never been accused of having a prejudice against multimedia). It may just depend upon lifestyles and the gadgets you own.

Regardless of why some people adapt well to podcasting and video blogs and others don’t, the ability to grasp the content of a work without listening/viewing to the complete work is something that will be needed. I how no idea how that will be accomplished.

“Every book begins as the desire for another book, as the drive to copy, to steal, and to contradict, as envy and as overconfidence.”

From Beatriz Sarlo, a leading Argentine intellectual, in Una Modernidad Periférica: Buenos Aires 1920 y 1930, p7.

After a 3 month absence from this blog, I’ve returned to focus on it more. My blogging focus recently has been on Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance. I’m going to be keeping that site up-to-date with cultural, historical, political, and social information about Buenos Aires but I also will be blogging more here at Endless Hybrids.

Endless Hybrids also now has its own new address, endlesshybrids.com.

Endless Hybrids also is featuring a great new design from sorodesign.com.

Essentially, Endless Hybrids will my professional Web spot for discussing issues relating to libraries & digital media.