The digital and hypertextual forces supposedly leading to the death of reading are in fact going to lead to its golden age.
Right now, we call it reading any time characters come before our eyes, whether we're "reading" a novel, a menu, a set of assembly instructions, or an exit sign. The term has come to cover too wide a territory. But reading is about to be niched.
The first books moving online are reference manuals. We want random and instant access to the information we need. And so, increasingly, online reference works are being designed as software applications rather than as online books.
Pretty soon we won't call using online reference works reading. Instead, we'll just call it referencing.
This will leave the term reading to describe engaging printed matter where sequence does count, where the order of the presentation is an important part of its value - novels, essays, poems. Reading will become a time of continuity in a fragmented world.
