After reading up on e-books, I found another medium for literature that I haven’t really explored before: online literature. As it turns out, there is an entire organization committed to “to facilitate and promote the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media,” and it is called the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO).
Initially I thought that e-lit was all short anime or 50 Shades of Grey-esque stories. Turns out I’m wrong. As defined by the ELO, electronic literature is “works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer.” It encourages “artists, writers, teachers, developers, and scholars” to connect and promotes e-lit as a “digital art.”
What excites me about the prospect of online books is twofold: there’s same reason I like the Nook I am about to buy — I can take it anywhere. Secondly, the ELO talks about uploading ancient works into its system, which will be helpful throughout college; I won’t have to request books that I can’t find in University Library. However, I also read an article from DigitalHumanities.org that surprised me by saying the exact opposite: “It is a sector of digital humanities focused specifically on born-digital literary artifacts, rather than on using the computer and the network to redistribute, analyze, or recontextualize artifacts of print culture.” The article was from 2009, which makes me wonder if the idea of e-literature has transformed since then (the ELO article was from June of 2012, so I’m guessing it has). But maybe different people have different ideas of what e-literature should be about.
Personally, I think e-literature should be a combination of everything – old works and new, the internet is the perfect place to distribute all that artists have ever had and will continue to offer. It is 2013, and it is about time we start providing all books, stories, novels, and pamphlets to all corners of the world. The internet is the perfect place for that. I applaud the ELO for its work towards “foster[ing] and promot[ing] the reading, writing, teaching, and understanding of literature as it develops and persists in a changing digital environment.”
It’s time to read explore!