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And that's a good thing!
Literary news blog The Millions has a great essay by Rebecca Rego Barry titled "A Rare Book Collector's Guide to the College Library Book Sale." Rather than a literal guide to book sales, Rego Barry's essay is a paean to books themselves, to the history they contain, the fads they speak of, and the promise they hold for the future. It is wonderfully evocative of the experience of browsing a college library's book sale, and it made me nostalgic for a book sale I attended decades ago on a perfect autumn day. After reading this eminently satisfying essay I sat back in my desk chair - for I read her essay on the computer, not to point out the obvious - and thought, "That's one more thing that e-books will kill."
And after being sad about that thought for a few minutes, I realized: That's a GOOD thing.
It's easy to get stuck on the obvious point: there will be no such thing as browsing tables groaning with old and mysterious and fascinating books. No more chance for serendipity there in the brilliant but somehow watery light of a sunny autumn afternoon. No sense of satisfaction as you stand in line at the register, arms loaded down with treasures you will take home for a pittance.
But.
When all books are e-books, there will be no need for the library to cull them, because the library will never run out of room.
And weren't we all just bemoaning the fact that thousands (maybe millions) of books are being destroyed every year, tossed into shredders to make way for all the new books that keep flooding into the library? When all books are e-books (not that ALL books will ever be e-books, but you get what I'm saying) physical space will cease to be a limiting factor.
This will be revolutionary because libraries, perennially cash-strapped, spend an awful lot of money handling and storing physical books. Imagine, instead of having to maintain an entire warehouse full of tomes, a library will just have a tidy little server humming away in a back room.
Interlibrary loan? Instant. Mis-shelved books? A thing of the past. Having to shelve books at all? No longer a task. (I spent a summer shelving books at a law library when I was in high school. It was the quintessential eternal task.)
I'm a big fan of e-books, and I spend a lot of time thinking about them. Nevertheless, I don't think we fully realize yet how e-books will transform our lives - and mostly for the better. Everyone will miss that cozy "library smell," but I think the trade-offs will really be worth it.
Photo courtesy Flickr/Christchurch City Libraries
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