Bob Stein

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Voyager's maiden voyages were 12-inch laser discs of great films--King Kong, Citizen Kane. Then in 1989 Stein and company brought out what's generally considered the first consumer CD-ROM, a multimedia guide to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. In the years since, Voyager has produced a flood of grown-up titles, including an interactive Hard Day's Night; Who Built America?, a people's history (you can click to hear labor songs and personal narratives) that's particularly dear to Stein's activist heart; a Stephen Jay Gould book on Darwin; and Art Spiegelman's pathbreaking comic Maus.

Stein's take on Voyager's role in the digital revolution is a careful blend of humanism, historical sense, and anti-authoritarian conviction. 'Hundreds of years ago,' he says, 'life was visible. You could go down to the blacksmith's shop and watch the guy shoe a horse. Nobody knows or sees how things work now; technology is hidden from us. That's where I think multimedia can come in--by giving an author a broader palate to work from. If something can be more impactful by being shown than written about, then it's great to have that option.'

At the same time, he takes a stand against engulfment by images. 'The entertainment industry wants to make all CD-ROMs more or less like movies,' he says. 'We stand for the idea of maintaining a space for the stuff that has to be in print--the thoughtful and more abstract material. It's a matter of maintaining choices, a matter of maintaining democracy in the electronic world.'

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