Reply #318: Libraries are obsolete like the "paperless office" is paperless

[Terry in Austin]

Both are variants of a tiresome trope from the late-twentieth-century myth of "progress." We see particularly virulent strains of this condition among computer geeks, cornucopian ideologues, trekkies, and subscribers to Wired magazine -- the belief that life shall be just like the Jetsons, only more digital, and all those quaint nostalgic relics of the past will be replaced by shinier, smaller, light-blinkier new stuff.

Hell, where's my jet-pack, dude?

Anyway, the way things usually evolve, they don't get replaced so much as get added to. It's not an either-or thing. And as a practical matter, paper is a perfectly valid component of the memory hierarchy.

Books are very much a part of who we are, from the beginning of civilization right down to the end of it, most likely. If we have to pay for our gee-whiz gadgetry with our humanity, I'd say the price was too high.