The End of Paper Books 669
Hugh Pickens writes "Books are on their way to extinction, writes Kevin Kelly, adding that we are in a special moment when paper books are plentiful and cheap that will not last beyond the end of this century. 'It seems hard to believe now, but within a few generations, seeing an actual paper book will be as rare for most people as seeing an actual lion.' But a prudent society keeps at least one specimen of all it makes, so Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, has decided that we should keep a copy of every book that Google and Amazon scan so that somewhere in the world there was at least one physical copy to represent the millions of digital copies. That way, if anyone ever wondered if the digital book's text had become corrupted or altered, they could refer back to the physical book that was archived somewhere safe. The books are being stored in cardboard boxes, stacked five high on a pallet wrapped in plastic, stored 40,000 strong in a shipping container, inside a metal warehouse on a dead-end industrial street near the railroad tracks in Richmond California. In this nondescript and 'nothing valuable here' building, Kahle hopes to house 10 million books — about the contents of a world-class university library. 'It still amazes me that after 20 years the only publicly available back up of the internet is the privately funded Internet Archive. The only broad archive of television and radio broadcasts is the same organization,' writes Kelly. 'They are now backing up the backups of books. Someday we'll realize the precocious wisdom of it all and Brewster Kahle will be seen as a hero.'"
I call shenanigans (Score:4, Informative)
they will have deteriorated to dust long before the end of this century
I keep seeing this claim on this thread. I'm old enough to have some books around that are 30 years old that I got as a kid. They show no apparent signs of deterioration. I have some of my father's books from the 50's and only the cheapest of those (some pocket-sized cartoon paperbacks) show any signs of pages yellowing or becoming brittle. The regular books are all just fine. I have some books of my grandfather's, mass-market subscription "American Classics", cheap leather bindings, made from 1908-1912 that are similarly fine to read (they're up for sale if you want them).
None of these books have been stored anywhere but typical household bookshelves and cardboard boxes in attics. At my folks' place there's a library full of these, none turning to dust.
Archiving by Law (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'll never own an e-reader (Score:1, Informative)
Why? Are your eyes that special?
I think what you really mean is that you have no interest in reading a book an a PC monitor. That's understandable, PC monitors have shit resolution (in the proper "pixels per square inch" or "ppi" sense). A standard 15.6" laptop screen at 1366x768 has a pixel density of just barely over 100ppi. That's painful for reading. The same 15.6" panel at 1920x1080 just barely goes over 141ppi. People blame the backlight, but they're wrong. The problem is the pixel density. Anything less than 150ppi is painful to read, and really 150ppi is the bare minimum without some extra "smoothing" technology (like eink, where the pixels are not fully uniform).
Some common reading devices and their pixel densities:
Try a high-density screen or eink and you might actually like it.
Re:How long does he think those books will last? (Score:5, Informative)
Really? That's an interesting statement. Of course they're not "designed" to last for hundreds of years, but all new books I've bought the last 20 years or so seems to be of higher quality than the still-very-readable books I have from the 19th and 20th century, and I would expect my new books to last at least a few hundred years.