The Federal Courts have all shifted over to e-filing documents, everything is filed electronically without a hard copy. About six months after my local court started e-filing, it created a new policy: in addition to filing your electronic document, you were also required to file a paper copy with the Judge. My theory? Printing costs at the Court skyrocketed as all the law clerks printed off 100s of pages in motions and motion responses so they could work off the paper copies.

I flip back and forth between electronic and paper documents for most of my work. It really just depends on the mood I’m in and what feels least cumbersome at the moment.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/23/slow-reading-an-antidote-for-a-fast-world.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129348373

Apparently, the CEO of Google is very concerned that deep reading is going the way of the dodo.

For what it’s worth, one reason why I cling to paper for note-taking is because I type so quickly that I can type without retaining ANY information in my brain (which was great when I did transcription typing for cash – I literally could type an entire report and have no idea what I’d typed because I would daydream or think about other things while I was typing, which is creepy a little bit but this is what happens when I type). I’ve ordered a Kindle (though they’re back-ordered, so who knows when I’ll actually get it) because I want to try shifting my PDF-stuff to it, but I still think paper is essential to me thinking deeply.

You know how there’s a slow food movement? I think humanities types might want to consider starting a slow reading movement. Even the warp-speed at which we consumed books in grad school (say pre-1995 or so) seems quaint and deliberate in retrospect now since the digital revolution.

I’ve tried having students email papers and using the “comment” function on Word. That’s okay, but I definitely read more carefully on hard copy. But ask students to double side their papers (to conserve paper) and they stare at you as though they’ve never heard of this function (this from a generation that learned how to twitter in kindergarten). Everything should be double-sided.

I completely agree with Historiann about the ways students do the readings (or not) when the readings are digital. Interacting with the text is crucial, not just running your eyes over it.

I sent to the Provost’s office Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece entitled “The Social Life of Paper” (http://www.gladwell.com/pdf/paper.pdf). And yes, it was on paper and sent in an interdepartmental envelope. I’m History Maven, and I print.