Re:Twilight of the Libraries: What Gets Lost When Books Go O...
by crazygringo on Wednesday March 01, 2023 @04:45PM
(#34988784)
First of all, this is what the Library of Congress is for. Sure it's not a bad idea to have one library with physical copies, or maybe even 2–3 or even 10, but we don't need thousands of them.
But second, no, physical libraries generally don't last for centuries and certainly almost never for millenia. They get sold off, torn down, they burn down, and so on.
On the other hand, you can keep an entire copy of Library Genesis on a home computer if you want. The sheer number of digital copies means none of this is going anywhere.
And if the grid goes down and society is collapsing, then a collection of a good proportion of the world's books on your hard drive powered by a generator is going to be infinitely more valuable than some physical library you have to hike for days to get to with a chance that raiders will kill you on the way. ;)
But second, no, physical libraries generally don't last for centuries and certainly almost never for millenia. They get sold off, torn down, they burn down, and so on.
On the other hand, you can keep an entire copy of Library Genesis on a home computer if you want. The sheer number of digital copies means none of this is going anywhere.
And if the grid goes down and society is collapsing, then a collection of a good proportion of the world's books on your hard drive powered by a generator is going to be infinitely more valuable than some physical library you have to hike for days to get to with a chance that raiders will kill you on the way. ;)