Marriage of tech and books in Boston

I was intrigued by a piece in yesterday morning's Globe by Jenna Nierstedt on plans to launch a Boston Book Festival in October. Nierstedt quoted Deborah Z. Porter, the festival's founder and president, as saying the theme will involve the city's history of being at the vanguard of "literary and technological creativity."
I was curious what that meant so I called Porter to get a preview.
She told me that the group plans presentations on how technology is changing the world of readers and books.
For instance one session will feature David Pogue, technology columnist for The New York Times, on how technology and devices are changing the way we read.
Another event will highlight Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, and will focus on how programs to collect digitized content, like the Archive and the Google books project, will affect readers and writers.
Porter said that in keeping with the theme the festival will feature a cyberart installation that will be "a visualization of what people are reading.'' She envisions gathering lists from various bookstores and individual readers and transforming the information into a multimedia presentation.
She also took pains to point out that the book festival will not be all tech, all the time. There will be plenty of the regular book festival fare. Writers such as Dennis Lehane, Skip Gates, Joe Finder, Tom Perrotta, Anita Diamant, Stephen Carter, Elinor Lipman, Walter Isaacson, Robert Pinsky, and Chris van Allsburg will attend and chat. And there will be programs for children and families, workshops on writing and publishing, and musical performances.
"At bottom we want this to be a cool public event that enhances the life of the city,'' she said.
A place, as the Boston Book Festival website says, “where you might want to bring a date. Or your thirteen-year-old niece.’’ Or, at least this year, your favorite gearhead.

Posted by Paul Makishima, Globe staff