In "The Database," Lev Manovich begins his exploration of the role of the database and the way it has affected our culture: "After the novel, and subsequently cinema, privileged narrative as the key form of cultural expression of the modern age, the computer age introduces its correlate - the database" (Manovich 408). To begin with, the computer age did not produce the database, as he uses the word for the majority of his exploration; only in the programmer's jargon. As far back as my mind can take me right now, I would say that the first obvious database, as described by Manovich as "collections of items on which the user can perform various operations - view, navigate, search" (Manovich 409), was the library: A massive collection of information that is collected in the most efficient form possible at the time of its conception, books. These are carefully organized according to topic in a seeming attempt to create a seamless transition between subjects, but there is truly no order that the "user" of the library is expected to take. The organization of the books is simply to help the user navigating the library in his search for the material he wishes to view. The same goes for an encyclopaedia, a museum, a supermarket, or even an all-you-can-eat buffet; all are databases based on his own description of them. It is not the digitization of these experiences that qualifies them as databases. The only changes that occur through such an action are the replacement of the elements of the sensory experience with those of computer use and the no longer site-specific accessibility of the new experience. The main difference between these and the internet is simply the infinite vastness of it, all being accessible from the same point, a search engine.

I think one of the problems in Manovich's ideas is that he doesn't quite understand the role of the database concerning the narrative. The distinction is not one of opposing ideas, but is one of a container and the properties held within. This is evident in the fact that he doesn't seem to demonstrate, in the text, an understanding of the distinction between a web page and a web site. A web site and a web page can be the one in the same, if it is a simple and straightforward site, but in most cases, a site will be composed of several web pages that link to each other and contain information relevant to each other. The site has no specific order, and its total information is fragmented among its pages, but each page presents its own content in a more straightforward and linear fashion. The site is a collection of pages, a database of them. Manovich introduces the idea of a web page being edited, but this really only helps elevate the simple page to the status of the narrative, which is strictly defined by Mieke Bal as follows: "It should contain both an actor and a narrator; it also should contain three distinct levels consisting of the text, the story, and the fabula; and its 'contents' should be ' a series of connected events caused or experienced by actors'" (Manovich 414). The page itself becomes the actor, the narrator is the editor, and the events experienced are the changes to the site. In most cases in which a narrative, such a storybook, is come across to be experienced or absorbed by an audience, it is found within a database, such as a library, and perhaps it always has been as such. The proper distinction would be that a narrative is always located within a database, but something within a database is not always a narrative.

Manovich, Lev. “The Database.” Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 408-427.