Demise of Books and Libraries

[brightspark]

It worries me as there is an opportunity for censorship by stealth by the government/corporate business. An example try to get a copy of Wind in the Willows with the chapter about Pan in it. You have to get a very old copy. Now it doesn't matter if this piece of text is good or bad, the point that I am trying to make is that by allowing the opportunity to forever delete it is dangerous. Apply this to any book and a "dangerous idea" could be neatly eliminated. If all books were electronic in 1930's Germany there would have been no mass book burning. Books could be re-edited, unapproved ideas removed. Progressive ideas included.

 

Three books come to mind that explore this idea.

 

Brave new world, where society is chemically altered and book are novelties, but new ideas are dangerous.

Fahrenheit 451, where books are destroyed as they contain ideas that make people unhappy.

1984, where even the language is changed....hmmm text-speak=new speak?

[30801]

It worries me as there is an opportunity for censorship by stealth by the government/corporate business. An example try to get a copy of Wind in the Willows with the chapter about Pan in it.

Here you go

[brightspark]

Well found, an uncensored version.

[Market65]

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2014/03/maintaining-national-coverage-of-paper-maps-in-great-britain-commitment-from-ordnance-survey/

Hi, many thanks for that valuable link. I do value the paper OS maps greatly and would be lost if they were no longer available. Thank goodness they are continuing to make them.

 

Many thanks,

 

Market65.

[Kenton]

 

In the 1930s, the Germans did exactly that. They also incinerated artworks.....and people. You're in good company.

I do think it about time we all started blaming everything on the Germans. Our history is not so squeaky clean and neither is world history since. I was pointing out the preference for indiscriminate digitisation of books prior to their tongue-in-cheek incineration. The idea being that digitisation makes (has the potential) to make a much wider range of "written" work available to more people.

 

And yes, the same could be applied to "works of art" instead of them only being available to a few "select" collectors and inaccessible museum storage vaults. In many cases these might as well have been burned as there is little seen of them by the public.

[PhilJ W]

I use the local library less and less now as my own personal library has expanded. I estimate it currently stands at over 3,000, I added 5 more yesterday purchased at the Chatham exhibition.

[iL Dottore]

I use the local library less and less now as my own personal library has expanded. I estimate it currently stands at over 3,000, I added 5 more yesterday purchased at the Chatham exhibition.

A man after my own heart.... I've actually lost track of how many books I own, it's probably around the 3 - 4 thousand mark. I even have a dedicated library room (a former bedroom), although I also have books and bookshelves in the kitchen (cookery books), workshop (railways and model railways), in Mrs iD's home office (varia) and in the "Japanese Room" (a former bedroom, now storing unfiled books). Mrs iD is most happy I am buying fewer books this year...

 

I must confess I suffer from two afflictions 1) I am an omnivorous reader [except for Westerns and Romances - which I can't stand], and 2) I hate getting rid of books. But then again I am an oddity, I read somewhere that the average British household has about 85 books (some accounts give slightly higher figures).

 

To conclude on a philosophical note: some pundits claim that the advent of the PC will have as great an impact on humanity as the printing press, but I wonder. Books don't need electricity to function, can be taken everywhere and anywhere, are always ready to be used, don't need bug fixes and can't be hacked. Furthermore, books can be made on the very simplest of hand powered printing presses....

 

Happy reading!

[Robert]

Most of the books frankly should just be burned. Except perhaps Fahrenheit 451.

 

Books should never, EVER be burned

[Fat Controller]

Digitisation might provide short-term accessibility; the problem is that, thus far evolution of both hard and software mean that material only a few years old may become inaccessible. If you've not retained a hard copy somewhere, then the thing's lost. This is already a problem with archives, where it is often more difficult to access 20 year old documents in digital form than paper copies from five hundred years back.

[Kenton]

 

Digitisation might provide short-term accessibility; the problem is that, thus far evolution of both hard and software mean that material only a few years old may become inaccessible. If you've not retained a hard copy somewhere, then the thing's lost. This is already a problem with archives, where it is often more difficult to access 20 year old documents in digital form than paper copies from five hundred years back.

Not strictly true where effort has been made to update and transfer, and where the principle of maintaining the core data is of recognised importance.

 

The dissemination of data has up to recently been difficult. The availability of WiFi and Broadband high data transfer rates has made it near impossible up to now. Even now the readers to download such information are in their "digital infancy". Added to which only a very small portion of the available information is truly available - most of which is still in protective custody, in effect censored, and not available to the mass population. The "local" library is just another part in the chain of this restriction. The books stocked and even available to lend are selected by those who control the system and as with books available to purchase are also controlled by the publishers. We are given what someone dictates we should read and when we are to read it. This can of course be even worse in less "free"/"developing" countries.

 

But just examine for a moment our own interest area of books on railways. Many of these books are no longer available, short production runs and just loss of copies over time mean that they are becoming rare on even the second-hand market. Most libraries do not stock them and obtaining copies though inter-library lending is no longer as easy as it used to be. Anyway that is not the same as owning a copy or having immediate access to it. Just expand that to the many other areas of research interest and already we are losing information/content.

 

Back to the question of data being lost as machines/software progresses. I still have my PDP-8 digitally collected research data from 45 years ago and a copy of my thesis in the current word processor. I have made the relatively small effort over the years to transfer it. It might seem odd to some but the same 8-bit ASCII codes used back then for each letter of the alphabet (and more) still apply today. The physical medium that it is stored on may change but not without the window of opportunity to move it to a "new" media.

 

In the end that is all books are - old media - black ink shapes on plain paper. Transferring that to laser cut ridges on a plastic disk is just a step forward in progress.

 

There is also no reason why one copy of a physical paper book cannot be retained in some archive - untouched and undamaged by human contact as a backup. But we are at a time when publishing such things is due to end.

[Robert]

Back in 1986 the BBC published the so called "Domesday Project" in order to collate data from the 1981 census, and recognise the 900th Anniversary of the Domesday book.  The project was stored on Laser discs and used a BBC Master computer to access the data.

 

When the BBC later came to digitise this information to make it available for the web, they had to borrow a laser disc player from a collector as the BBC no longer had any laser disc players.  Of course, the argument in the media was, the original Domesday book is 900 years old and can still be read.  The BBC version is less than 30 years old and cannot.

 

However, this is precisely the problem with evolution - how many people could actually read and understand the 900 year old version - not many I would guess, as the language has evolved in a similar way to the technology (albeit at a glacial pace, by comparison).

 

Much has been done in recent years to make computer data exchange easier.  There are far more standards than there ever were previously.  Take the PDP-8 as an example, it had 12-bit words (and therefore effectively 6-bit bytes), so at that point in time, not even the number of bits in a byte was standardised! 

 

However, there is still a long way to go.  My personal opinion is that the demise of the paper book is a very, very long way off.

[Oldddudders]

Probably stopped reading books (cover tor cover style reading) after I left Uni some 40 years ago. 

 

SNIP

 

Most of the books frankly should just be burned. Except perhaps Fahrenheit 451.

Where, oh where, would we be without Kenton?

 

Perhaps some wise person, alone in his eyrie, is at this moment penning a surefire blockbuster book "RMweb - The Kenton Years"?

[Kenton]

 

Perhaps some wise person, alone in his eyrie, is at this moment penning a surefire blockbuster book "RMweb - The Kenton Years"?

Do you really think it will sell enough copies to justify the cost of a box of fire lighters?

[rodshaw]

Local charity shops are a good source of books, albeit you have to pay a few quid. In fact, the ones near me combined probably have more decent books than the local library, which seems to have less and less every time I go in.

[Robert]

Much as I am trying to resist the temptation to feed the trolls, I really do have a massive problem with anyone who advocates the burning of books.

 

Kenton, do you really have to come to a topic about books, and libraries and spout unmitigated ?

[30801]

Much as I am trying to resist the temptation to feed the trolls, I really do have a massive problem with anyone who advocates the burning of books.

Aside from issues of symbolism and environmental impact what's the problem? I slung some books in the bin a few weeks ago. Is that not the same thing?

Books are a stoarge medium. so long as you don't chuck out the last copy it's OK.

[Horsetan]

.... so long as you don't chuck out the last copy it's OK.

 

Question is, how do you know when / if you hold the last-known copy?

[30801]

Question is, how do you know when / if you hold the last-known copy?

If there's only one copy it probably wasn't that good a book anyway

[Kenton]

 

Kenton, do you really have to come to a topic about books, and libraries and spout unmitigated ######?

Sadly you have missed the whole point of the discussion.

 

You, and a few others have become obsessed with the remark about Farenheight 451 (including the somewhat stupid and offensive holocaust association) rather than the general and far more relevant point about replacing paper media and its control with the mass appeal and availability of digitisation.

 

You may well like the feel of paper and the ability to physically turn pages. But to many, as witnessed by the sales of Kindles and their ilk, downloads to smartphone readers etc. digitisation is the way forward.

 

In many countries now electronic media is fast replacing books in schools and there will be a generation soon where a paper book is a rare item (in some African communities it always has been). Education has nothing to do with books it is the content that is important.

 

Many of us already read far more on the internet than in books. I cannot see that ending. Most of the books I am interested in are non-commercial, either being on minority interest subjects, effectively censored (sometimes unintentionally) by being placed in library archives, or simply out of print never to be republished as there is no profit for the publisher. Obtaining some of the technical work is near impossible without copying (don't go there) sometimes even from abroad. These copies tend to now be in digital or part digital format.

 

Those who are still enamoured with the feel of paper probably shouldn't worry as digitisation will take many decades - there are a lot of books out there, so probably not in your or my lifetime - but a start and deliberate step forward has to be made. Unless we are to continue to deny future generations of the content of books in the past.

 

Electronic translators are getting better, just think of all the works in other languages that could become available to you, and books written in English translated so that they can be "read" and understood by everyone in the world. Why should the English speakers have the monopoly on information and entertainment of the "written" word?

 

Blind or poor sight, physically disabled? Technology is working to make us all equal by making information global.

[PhilJ W]

Much as I am trying to resist the temptation to feed the trolls, I really do have a massive problem with anyone who advocates the burning of books.

 

Kenton, do you really have to come to a topic about books, and libraries and spout unmitigated ######?

Not even Mills & Boon?

[Robert]

Maybe I have missed the whole point of the discussion, but if you read my other post this afternoon then I think you would find that I hadn't completely.

 

You were the one that advocated book burning, and that was what (as a book lover) riled me.

 

I won't say any more on the subject, because I come to RMweb for a variety of reasons and getting annoyed over inflammatory remarks isn't one of them.

[Purley Oaks]

Disadvantaged sections of our society need access to libraries in order to get online in order to complete forms for job applications and for welfare claims. Library closures may mean nothing to some of us, but for others libraries are extremely important.

 

Libraries are being closed because local authorities have been told to save money by the government as part of their austerity measures which were deemed necessary by the banking crisis (credit default swaps in the United States which were sold on and on and eventually leaked into the British banking system). Library closures probably seemed an easy thing to do at the time because no one wants to pay higher council tax.

 

Happy Days!

 

Mal

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

Evenin' all,

 

As a book lover I wouldn't even consider the destruction of any book, I would simply deliver a box with those which I no longer had need of to the nearest charity shop. There will always be another (maybe financially challenged) book collector grateful for the opportunity. An important aspect of book ownership after all, is sharing them.

 

Dave

[jonny777]

I have used libraries on an infrequent basis in the past, but preferred to buy my own copies because I just like the idea of a book especially a hard-back. However, like others on this thread I began to find that room at my home for books was running out, especially as my wife reads lots of paperbacks a year.

 

So, I experimented with e-books but did not like the endless reading from a screen. I don't know why a printed page seems more acceptable than the same words on a flat screen, but there it is.

 

After some thought, I decided to try an audio book - and let someone read to me rather than reading for myself. It was a wonderful experience, similar to listening to the radio many years ago. Now I am beginning to amass quite a collection of audio books, which I can play on ipads, ipods, ibooks and laptops. Initially the choice was somewhat limited, but now I can find all manner of histories and biographies (which are my favourite subjects) online and download them for listening to when I have a spare hour or so, which given the junk that passes for tv schedules these days is a quite frequent occurrence.

 

I know that I am a bit strange, but listening to a book has now taken over from reading one.

[Prometheus]

I thought the Fahrenheit 451 comment was deliberately ironic [and quite amusing] - was I wrong ?

 

Tony