I love libraries.
I love the rows and rows of books stacked above my head, the atmosphere hushed quieter than a church. Occasionally kids shout or babies squall. People murmur quietly together.
I browse the shelves, running my fingers along the thick and thin books with the peculiar musty smell of paper and the lingering spices and perfumes embedded in the pages.
Seeing an interesting title, I pull it off the shelf, study the cover and crack it open, scanning the summary and a few random pages. I replace the book and continue my meanderings, searching for anything thick as a textbook but a thousand times more interesting.
Volumes of words and information surround me, but the atmosphere is much more hushed than the clamor of the Internet. The books occupy their shelves in a tangible way that all the digital technology in the world will never achieve.
There are constant rumors that with the advancement of digital technology, we will eventually have a paperless society. Even though that has been said for years, it is still a long time in coming. Or so I hope.
However, Google Inc. is in the process of creating an online library with the stated goal of expanding access to books by posting copies of public domain works and bibliographic information of copyrighted books. While its current selection is limited, there is good reason to believe it will eventually succeed in getting most published works online.
At this point it is most like an online universal catalog and not quite a true digital library where all works would be available through the computer. Google defends its projects, saying, “Some of our critics believe that somehow Google Books will become a substitute for the printed word. To the contrary, our goal is to improve access to books – not to replace them.”
Given Google’s previous success, there is no doubt it will eventually succeed, but the hard part is convincing the average person of the worth of such technology.
Amazon Inc. in the meantime has been working on popularizing the Kindle, its electronic reader.
There are all the best intentions behind popularizing this technology. You have less paper waste, less shelf clutter and more portability. Why should it not be successful?
The newness of the technology and the long time familiarity with paper has slowed its universality. The Kindle is still rather expensive, and the selection of available titles is still rather limited, especially if you are not into romance novels or New York Times bestsellers.
Besides, hardcopy books require no batteries, you can get more of them for free at your local library, and you can skim and bookmark with no technological know-how.
Some libraries are making e-books available through their catalogs, something completely different from Kindle or Google. While this technology will appeal to our generation, I think there are certain limitations to having so much available information through the Internet.
There are simply too many distractions online.
Every time I log on with the best intentions of downloading lecture notes from D2L or attempt to research ideas for my next column, the task takes twice as long as it should because I must visit all my favorite blogs and Web sites before getting around to real work.
If my textbooks were available on my computer, I would start reading, become bored and wander down the familiar pathway of Facebook updates and random Google searching.
An interesting novel from the library would not have that same problem, but a computer is not nearly as comforting as a book for relaxing on the couch.
As a want-to-be librarian, I recognize the importance of digital technology for the future, and I encourage any development that will improve Google Books or Amazon’s Kindle.
At the same time, I think it is important that we keep and continue to make dead-tree books both as our heritage and as a source for universal access to information that is not so dependent on electricity or batteries.
In the meantime, I would like to see an improved digital reader that will contain all my textbooks and other required reading.
This same reader will have a word search function and will allow me to bookmark, highlight and write notes and arrows in the margins. It should have an adjustable viewing screen and have a touch screen like an iPod touch.
It will also have connectivity with my laptop. Said device will have wireless capabilities for the sake of downloading books, but it will not allow me to get distracted by Facebook, e-mail or blogs. That is what my computer is for.
I would like to conclude with a quote from N. Katherine Hayles: “We should not see print and electronic literature as in competition, but rather in conversation. The more voices that join in, the richer the dialogue is likely to be.”
I hope that in our future world there will be both paper and electronic books, making libraries appeal to both high-tech and low-tech sensibilities. There will always be a place for dead-tree books while we enrich our information strongholds with the capabilities of computers.
I hope this will be true because like Thomas Jefferson, I cannot live without books.
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brandeis 2 years, 7 months ago
At Brandeis we do not have to defend books