ABSTRACT
"The open book" implies the shift from a closed to an open system of communication and knowledge production. This chapter discusses an aspect of the new messianism about e-texts that is called as "openness". It argues that, by entertaining the concept of open knowledge production systems, it will not mean the "end of the book" but rather its radical subsumption in a new electronic textual system that will involve a set of changes in all aspects of the "culture of the book", including all phases of its creation, production, and consumption as well as its practices and institutions of reading and writing. Finally, the chapter investigates the meaning of these changes for the future of reading. There are a set of external forces that intrude on the future of reading that are emerging from new patterns of ownership and the political economy of media.
