by Randy Murray on September 3, 2010
If your goal is to become a better writer, you need to practice. Here’s your writing assignment for today: visit your local library and write a short piece about what books mean to you.
As a writer, you need to develop the skill of being able to write virtually anywhere, particularly in public places. The library is a natural place to start working on these skills. It is quiet, which is helpful, but the presence of others is aligned with your goal of writing in public. They’re there to seek knowledge and the comfort of books. They’re worshipping at the same altar as you.
In today’s assignment, write a short piece on the importance of books in your life and personal experience. But go to the library to write this piece. Use the atmosphere and the presence of books, readers, and researchers to inform your writing.
Here’s my example:
The first book I remember was bound with cardboard covers and told a story about a sandbox and some children who could make it fly with the help of a magic wishbone. This book I remember, and I think of it at times. I also remember looking at the pictures, sitting close to my Grandma. It was the first of countless others, each my own magic wishbone, each helping me to think new thoughts, imagine new pictures. To soar.
Here, in the library, anything is possible. Here, in this cool and quiet place I can pause and think. Here, among the other seekers and refugees, I feel I share in a common cause.
The sign on the wall across the way says, “Ask Here.” They do not promise fulfillment and don’t follow with “and you shall receive.” But the potential, the open and hopeful opportunity is enough. To ask and have my question considered, have a course plotted, and perhaps to find a guide, is all the welcome I require.
Here among the books I am home.
You may leave your completed assignment in the comments section below.
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by Randy Murray on September 2, 2010
A lot of ink and electrons are being spent talking about the end of physical books, the death of print. I’ve speculated about it myself. And I sit here at my desk, writing on my iMac with my iPhone in my pocket and my iPad propped up on the desk. But on the other side of my room are some of my favorite possessions: shelf after shelf of books.
Technically, it would be very simple to convert most books and publications into completely electronic versions in just a few years. There are strong economic and environmental reasons why we should consider it. eBooks, in particular, are taking off rapidly. I’ve read several on my iPad, which is also a Kindle and a Nook. It’s very convenient.
But there is one reason that we must absolutely keep print alive: digital archives are unreliable.
Just ask NASA. Read about the missing Apollo 11 tapes. And how they found some of them. But they taped over much of the very important data collected to save money on tapes!
Librarians have been dealing with the problems surrounding the preservation of knowledge for millennia. It is not a trivial task. And to date, the most reliable form of data preservation we have is print. Even movies can be stored printed on paper and it may be the best way to preserve them over time. During the very short history of electronic communications and digital data storage we’ve undergone almost continual changes to our systems. That means that the data files you stored ten years ago may not be readable by your current systems. Proposed digital archiving standards require that all digital materials be reviews and upward migrated in intervals no less than five years. See this article on the Library of Congress and their film archiving project for some of the challenges of long term archiving.
Humanity has already suffered many crippling losses of archives and data. You’ve probably heard of the Library of Alexandria. The loss of that collection of ancient works both deepened the period we call “The Dark Ages” and hides from us a great deal of our own human history. It was a staggering loss. Should we ever develop time travel, our first stop should be to that library, with as many cargo containers as we can manage.
If we abandon print, we put ourselves at great risk of even greater losses in the future. Digital archives are expensive to migrate forward and far too easy to corrupt, either accidentally or intentionally. But a series of archives around the world, filled with printed books, periodicals, even films, are a much higher guarantee that our knowledge and experience will survive.
But even paper has its problems; over the past hundred and fifty years or so, publishers have been using very poor paper, paper with a high acid content. Many books and most of the magazines and periodicals that are more than fifty years old are already brittle and becoming unreadable. Those older publications printed on this cheap paper are completely crumbling. But books printed over two hundred years ago are much more likely to be readable – and may be for some time to come. Penny recommends the movie Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record for an excellent introduction to this very important issue.
The Long Now Foundation is looking at ways of preserving knowledge for over 10,000 years. To some that may seem silly, but to me, it’s a noble and important task. Our libraries, filled with printed materials, are a step in the right direction. I’ll continue to buy and use electronic versions of books and printed ones as well. But I strongly support the printing and holding of printed materials in our libraries for the foreseeable future.
