Here is an excerpt from an article by Meredith Green, with the above title, in the Sacramento Book Review. It expresses a similar concern to that voiced by Sue Polanka that we published here.
While most of my fellow bookworms and writers love their paper books ardently, they know that technology’s march will inevitably end up with less of these on library shelves; various recent news stories seem to support that reasoning. Even if libraries each stock an Espresso Book Binding machine, a pricey device, enabling consumers instant paperback satisfaction, the databank it is tied to is powered by the Internet. There is a possibly that in the future–when libraries rely solely on online databanks of books for download to devices–terrorists might hack into Project Gutenberg and erase all the files, like some sideways rendition of tyrannical ‘book-burning.’ In the 1990′s film version of The Time Machine, books in a futuristic library had been replaced by a holographic librarian, proudly standing by a sort of nuclear-powered globe that contained “All human knowledge” and looked like it could easily be wiped out by one well-placed suitcase EMP device.
In the future, it may behoove libraries to have a contest each year that would select 100 or so of that year’s ‘best’ books, in a variety of genres, and then have these selections printed and ceremoniously added to the shelves; they should also keep as many of their currently-shelved paper books as possible. In such a fashion at least some of our English-language knowledge, studies, history, and literature would remain tangible in the event of a digital information disaster.
Even better, have these books baked into clay tablets. Paper rots, is eaten by worms, is subject to water damage and fire. It’s a horrible medium for preservation, especially in the event of a social breakdown. Baked clay tablets are much better, which is how we have the surviving Mesopotamian works.
Archiving is important. Paper is a horrible way to do it.
Clay tablets can break; why not have a priesthood of bards, to memorize and pass down to future bards these important works?
IT figured out backups and redundancy a long time ago. It’s called disaster recovery. It worked just fine for my company after 9/11, they were in the World Trade Center.
So, disaster recovery IT systems are impervious to EMP… got it.
LOL@ clay tablets. Clay can breaks down with moisture, if not fired. The glazing might distort the prose, and we can’t have that. A few papyrus scrolls have stuck around from ancient times, so perhaps paper’s just got a bad rap.
I suggested an annual book selection not due to paper’s aging abilities, but because of the human love affair with paper books. Since they’ll be printing them anyway for a short while, selecting a few great pieces each year to add to libraries seems a far less wasteful action than printing out stacks and stacks of every book available, many of which go unsold and are eventually mulched.
For all their drawbacks, paper books are not susceptible to EMP, hacking or glitches. Some archiving is better than none, even if its paper. I just hope that the libraries don’t stop stocking paper books altogether, relying on a flaw-prone database system which–if you think about it–has no tangible backup for itself.
Actually, the issue is moot.
Come the Magnetic Superstorm Apocalypse, nobody will be left alive to worry about paper, clay, or digital.
Anybody wanting to leave something behind for any passing alien space travellers should be thinking of a message on a gold plate placed on the moon. 😉
I’m voting for gold-plated singing bards made of clay juggling paperbacks and eReaders on the moon.
Proper disaster recovery has backups located not only on-site, but off-site as well, some of them in fire-proof (and consequently pretty much radiation proof as well) vaults even. While an EMP would certainly put a dent in the ability to access data, I doubt it would cause a permanent data apocalypse. It’s very rare that an IT company these days lose data if they have a proper backup and disaster recovery system that works.
On the other hand, a lot of personal data will be gone, simply because outside sysadmins (and even they get lazy) not many people know how to secure it. If there’s a fire or your computer equipment gets stolen, is your data safe?