For centuries, the right place to look, when in search of the best archaeological knowledge, has been in some kind of printed book. There will once have been a manuscript, and if the book never materialized, a manuscript may substitute, but what usually matters is the better truth that has the authority of print.In a now-standard joke, a wizard of a yet-newer information display system is described: hugely flexible in size and in format and in what it can present, made of cheap and common materials, wholly recyclable, and — best of all — requiring no screen or display device of any kind whatsoever. At some point you realize the miracle being described is a book. But the book is for many purposes deservedly obsolescent, and archaeological research is in truth already in the age beyond the printed book. Specialist illustrated publications have high fixed costs in the print, and low circulations mean there are too few copies to spread the costs over. When the first new technology of cheap reprographics came in a generation ago, the ‘grey literature’ of field reports began to grow, soon reaching a point at which no library and no individual could be relied on to possess the ‘collected literature’ on any topic of large range. Now an increasing amount of archaeological knowledge is only or better made accessible electronically.
Integrated information display system of automobiles in new technology days.
