sorting things out

Growing up, I could walk exactly one block from my house to the public library. I could walk in, find the fiction section, and walk through the stacks looking at each book, neatly labeled with a sticker indicating its genre (mystery, romance, etc). Now, I realize not every library has the sticker system, but, when we go to the bookstore or library, we can easily see pertinent information (author, title, genre, summary) almost immediately. We get this information, pretty much whether we like it or not, before we even read the book.

On the other hand, when we come across hypertexts, cyberdramas, and the like, the piece's information by which it can be catalogued is not as obvious. We may have to search for a special link that displays relevant information (like author and site information).

The issue of separating works into genres or categories is one which plagues many of us. Both on the blog and in our reading, I have noticed the trend. Shock and Awe points out how Jemma is really a specific site meant to encourage young women in science. It's not that the site can't have value independent of its goal, it's just that we feel more comfortable when we know what to expect. We feel disappointed if we expect one thing and are given another. If I want to read a romance novel, I'm disappointed by Sherlock Holmes.

Outside of its pracitical usefulness, when we discuss theory, we also feel the need to categorize. In our reading for this week, Nick Montfort entitles his piece "Interactive Fiction as 'Story,' 'Game,' 'Storygame,' 'Novel,' 'World,' 'Literature,' 'Puzzle,' 'Problem,' 'Riddle,' and 'Machine.' Different people suggest different category assignments and, as we've read, it seems that some of the more reasonable articles, at least to me, have been the ones that suggest multiple descriptions.

Still, I think it would help us approach electronic texts if, like the library does, there was a way to assign the texts to categories. We may run into the same critical problems of multiplicity that the video gamers and others run into but at least we might have a jumping off point. Also, disappointment might be curbed by knowing exactly what type of text to expect.