The demise of the library and the corruption of human knowledge in the digital age

Old books fascinate me. I was digging through a box of old books in search of one that I had spoken to my son about, and came upon a few others that I thought he might find of interest. I got to reflecting on local libraries and their disposal of print media in favor of computer terminals with internet access. A majority of local library users are seated in front of these terminals, not seeking titles in the stacks. We routinely hear of books being disposed of in order to make space for more "relevant" materials.

It seems to me that we are not far from a time when actual books will be all but gone. Their contents will be encoded into ethereal ones and zeroes--perhaps faithfully, perhaps carelessly or crudely edited. I wonder if the integrity of human knowledge can be maintained, or rather will it be revised by learned people who might deem the stories of history better told. First-person accounts of historical events will gradually be lost as their experiences are "updated" and interpreted for a modern audience.

I am amazed at the brevity of the collection at my local library. A handful of "classics" are available, but most of the shelf space is devoted to recent fiction, biography, and so very many "self-help" books. So many titles that I read as a youth are out of print and no longer even in the system. Has anyone else experienced this? What say ye?

I've often thought that say in 30 years, if a catastrophic event happened what would future archeologists think of us. Soon there will be no hard records. (no stone tablets, no books, no written language) We'll be a phantom culture that left massive structures, but nothing else.

Then I wonder if this has happened before.... and we're just continuing the cycle. Was Georgio right about our origins after all??

Don't panic:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom.

I serve on the board of my local library system. Libraries everywhere are working through the changes that the digital age have brought about.

Our local library system is very well regarded - we won the presidential medal last year!Books aren't going anywhere just yet, but libraries have to work on clarifying their role in the communities they serve. Free access to people of every economic class is one of the hallmarks of a library. They can be the great equalizer of people, which is one of my favorite things.

Regarding your concerns for history, that has been a challenge since history was recorded. History has been revised more times than we can count. If anything, I think the general access to information that the digital age brings might improve the recording of history as fact not fiction.

Now for some favorites:

Neil Gaiman said: “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jXhh-DwQseg

Counterpoint, via the internet more information is available than ever before.

Example. Way back in the 1970's I tried to do a school report on the peace sign. I had to abandon it because I could not find any documentation of the history of that symbol in any of the several libraries I visited. Decades pass, the internet is born, and I was finally able to find the history of that symbol (it's anti-nuke from the UK).

Methods of recording data have always been changing. While historical things invariably are lost (just look at Syria), not everything is invariably lost.

In reply to Mezzanine:

Ouch. That video could induce a seizure!

Libraries are honestly just adjusting to the market, can't really blame them for that.

I don't think there is any real risk of loosing any information. What you do loose is the "art" of the book. Some of which cannot be digitally reproduced. Of course, in digital form, you can add different art forms.

1988RedT2 wrote: It seems to me that we are not far from a time when actual books will be all but gone. Their contents will be encoded into ethereal ones and zeroes--perhaps faithfully, perhaps carelessly or crudely edited. I wonder if the integrity of human knowledge can be maintained, or rather will it be revised by learned people who might deem the stories of history better told. First-person accounts of historical events will gradually be lost as their experiences are "updated" and interpreted for a modern audience. I am amazed at the brevity of the collection at my local library. A handful of "classics" are available, but most of the shelf space is devoted to recent fiction, biography, and so very many "self-help" books. So many titles that I read as a youth are out of print and no longer even in the system. Has anyone else experienced this? What say ye?

Historical revisionists aren't editing books as they're digitized, books are digitized by OCR machines, and it would be really hard to get away with modifying anything that has more than a single copy in circulation. Historical revisionists write their own books.

Also is scrolling through a list of books not similar to physically looking through the shelves?

Relative to the amount of it available at the time, I don't see any reason to believe that the corruption of human knowledge in the digital age is significantly different than in the printed age, nor the written age, nor the chiseled age, nor the carved age, nor the spoken age.

Driven5 wrote: Relative to the amount of it available at the time, I don't see any reason to believe that the corruption of human knowledge in the digital age is significantly different than in the printed age, nor the written age, nor the chiseled age, nor the carved age, nor the spoken age.

If anything it should be less now. We can easily compare digital books in seconds or store hashes of their text with digital notary services.

The information age and the internet is often offered as the counter point, but I think the depth of knowledge these sources provide pales drastically in comparison to a book. Consider Rufledt's amazing thread on archery and building your own bow. He will probably be the first to admit that it is nothing compared to the Archery Bible books that are referenced in the thread.

Oh and the burning of the Library of Alexandria is one of the greatest tragedies. They would seize any scrolls from boats and any that they didn't have a copy of they took, made a copy, kept the original and returned the copy to the visitors. Think of all the knowledge there.

I find the move to "mostly" digital media to be a bit disconcerting. With the printed word on paper there is no need for a power source, or translational device, reader, or any of that it's simply print to eyeball. Now leap forward just a few years and imagine you want to go back and reread that book you had in your Kindle/iPad back in 2015. But because technology marches on your reader of choice has change three times since then. The battery in your old device (found in a drawer) is dead, it won't power up. The power cable dongle has evolved as well so you can't charge it unless you can find the particular one that came with it.

I already see this happening in my life and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. OTOH, I have some really cool old books sitting on my shelf that I can pick up and read 100 years after they were printed.

I know this makes me sound like a technology hating luddite but it's the sort of thing we as a culture need to be aware of as we race forward always grasping the new and innovative without evaluating if we should just because we can.

This is why I refuse to by a e reader. It cannot replace the satisfaction of cracking open an old book.

GameboyRMH wrote: Also is scrolling through a list of books not similar to physically looking through the shelves?

Well, no. Not very. At least not to me.

And I find it humourous (and telling) that you should cite the exception rather than the rule. http://fee.org/freeman/why-american-history-is-not-what-they-say-an-introduction-to-revisionism/

I see it both ways. In many respects, the web IS a modern Library of Alexandria--which is I think why we are having this conversation, because losing it would take with it a lot of our learning. And nyan cat. But as a lover of books, I find that the e-reader is not quite the same. Browsing titles on it is very one-dimensional, and doesn't begin to spark the memories--or the love and desire to revisit them--that I get browsing a shelf of books I've read.

Margie

In reply to fritzsch:

Information in the digital age goes well beyond threads on internet forums. The Archery Bible books you speak of can be (have been?) converted to digital form as well. Depending on how old/new it is, its original and native form may actually be digital anyways. Publishing it in digital form vs printed form would actually allow for original information to just as easily be preserved intact, while also being able to far more frequently make corrections and updates, as they are discovered, with any new or changed techniques, construction methods, or materials.

The amount of information lost in the Library of Alexandria probably pales in comparison to that available just on Wikipedia...Which is but one website that is but a small fraction that barely skims the surface of the knowledge that exists in digital form globally. We are well and truly privileged to live in the digital age.

.

In reply to KyAllroad:

At the individual level, information has always been easy to lose or destroy. The key is in the existence of that information at the global level. In print, while better than anything prior, all that exists are copies in a single format. But now there can be copies in various digital formats (kindle/iPad/Nook/etc.), as well as hard copies, in addition to the original master copy that is now created digitally.

I do still wonder though: Hundreds of years from now, will the variety of digital storage devices discovered in the ruins of our civilizations prove more or less durable than papyrus, parchment, or paper has...And how much, or little, of it will have been lost between now and then.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: I see it both ways. In many respects, the web IS a modern Library of Alexandria--which is I think why we are having this conversation, because losing it would take with it a lot of our learning. And nyan cat. But as a lover of books, I find that the e-reader is not quite the same. Browsing titles on it is very one-dimensional, and doesn't begin to spark the memories--or the love and desire to revisit them--that I get browsing a shelf of books I've read. Margie

This.

foxtrapper wrote: Counterpoint, via the internet more information is available than ever before.

But not all information is on the internet. This is a common misunderstanding. There's a big shortage of information that predates the rise of the digital age.

Example. I love endurance racing. John Wyer is one of the heroes of endurance racing. He wrote a book called The Certain Sound, published over 30 years ago. It's full of great information about the rise of Gulf Racing, the GT40, the 917, etc. Much better than the lighter weight Go Like Hell (A.J.Baime).

But you won't find it online. A few of the tales have been paraphrased in amateur blog posts and the like, but the primary source is not available. Printed copies sell for $200-400.

John Horsman's book Racing In The Rain is the same. It was recently reprinted, but is out of print again. Again, no digital copies are available.

You like Can-Am racing? Grab a copy of Can-Am from Pete Lyons before it disappears as well, as the print run is starting to dry up. Again, we're talking primary material here from the guys who were there.

Where are you going to find these books if you're not willing to shell out for them? Your library.

As for the permanence of digital records - that's not such a big deal on the personal time scale as opposed to the scale of civilizations. I've been an avid e-reader owner for years, and I've moved from device to device without a problem. As with digital music, it's all about DRM and standard file types. Ebooks are just text, which should be the most portable file type out there. If you make the mistake of buying books that are all locked down with DRM, then you will have trouble when you try to access them with a different device - a big thumbs-down to Amazon for this one. But if you choose your formats with care, it'll be fine.

I have no problem reading on an e-reader. If, five minutes in, I'm still paying more attention to the physical book instead of the contents, then it's not really worth reading...

I also see it as both good and bad. Libraries have to adapt to the times to stay relevant. I grew up going to the library to find out about something or even just occupy time. Parents always encouraged that. Took my kids to the library whenever they wanted. Then internet came along. I went to college at night after I retired from the army and heavily used the internet for research. I found that it was very easy to get overwhelmed with more information than feasible.

KyAllroad wrote: I find the move to "mostly" digital media to be a bit disconcerting. With the printed word on paper there is no need for a power source, or translational device, reader, or any of that it's simply print to eyeball. Now leap forward just a few years and imagine you want to go back and reread that book you had in your Kindle/iPad back in 2015. But because technology marches on your reader of choice has change three times since then. The battery in your old device (found in a drawer) is dead, it won't power up. The power cable dongle has evolved as well so you can't charge it unless you can find the particular one that came with it. I already see this happening in my life and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. OTOH, I have some really cool old books sitting on my shelf that I can pick up and read 100 years after they were printed. I know this makes me sound like a technology hating luddite but it's the sort of thing we as a culture need to be aware of as we race forward always grasping the new and innovative without evaluating if we should just because we can.

Just playing devil's advocate here.

The flip side of your argument would be something like the following situation: Say you have an impressive library of actual books in your house. One night, you're awakened by smoke detectors, and find that your house is on fire. You have time to grab just a couple of things on your way out. You and the fam escape, but the house is a total loss. Your books are soggy toast. If you had them digitally stored, you could just grab the storage device quickly and it would be fine. Your entire library would be saved, and able to travel wherever you did.

Keith Tanner wrote:

foxtrapper wrote: Counterpoint, via the internet more information is available than ever before.

But not all information is on the internet. This is a common misunderstanding. There's a big shortage of information that predates the rise of the digital age. Example. I love endurance racing. John Wyer is one of the heroes of endurance racing. He wrote a book called The Certain Sound, published over 30 years ago. It's full of great information about the rise of Gulf Racing, the GT40, the 917, etc. Much better than the lighter weight Go Like Hell (A.J.Baime). But you won't find it online. A few of the tales have been paraphrased in amateur blog posts and the like, but the primary source is not available. Printed copies sell for $200-400. John Horsman's book Racing In The Rain is the same. It was recently reprinted, but is out of print again. Again, no digital copies are available. You like Can-Am racing? Grab a copy of Can-Am from Pete Lyons before it disappears as well, as the print run is starting to dry up. Again, we're talking primary material here from the guys who were there. Where are you going to find these books if you're not willing to shell out for them? Your library.

Thank you, Keith. That fairly eloquently sums up my concern about current library offerings. There is so much that has been written on a broad panoply of topics within even the narrow time frame of 50 years ago that has not been transferred to the digital realm and is now all but gone from libraries and booksellers.

Edit: I just took the liberty of searching all three of the above titles on our county library's online catalog. Not one of the three is in the system in any format.

Keith Tanner wrote: But not all information is on the internet. This is a common misunderstanding. There's a big shortage of information that predates the rise of the digital age.

I don't think anybody here is arguing that. But the digital age also isn't to blame for the long-term loss of older printed books either. That too has been happening throughout history before the digital age as well. How many out of print 30 year old books did most libraries have in stock 30 years ago? If anything, the digital should make preserving them much easier for future legal printings, or even for personal 'fair use'.

The technology certainly exists, but the reality is that many of these books will never get transferred for legal or practical reasons. Maybe once they hit public domain, which is what Project Gutenberg is all about.

The digital domain isn't to be blamed for the loss of this information, my point was that the concept of "libraries aren't needed, everything's online" is very false. Ask a librarian, they'll be quite enthusiastic on this topic.

Keith Tanner wrote: The digital domain isn't to be blamed for the loss of this information...

I'm not entirely sure that even this is true. Years ago, you could find dusty volumes on the shelves that hadn't been checked out in years. Now, all those old books have been removed to make room for computer workstations.