[1459] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
End Of The World, Part I
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael S. Hart)
Mon Oct 12 18:51:31 1992
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:10:33 CDT
Reply-To: Project Gutenberg Email List <GUTNBERG%UIUCVMD.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
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COPYRIGHT 1992 PROF. MICHAEL S. HART, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THIS MESSAGE MAY NOT BE COPIED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
Given the massive and unanimous response to my "End of the Internet"
announcement. . .I am hereby putting my toe in to test these waters.
Anywhere I post it that I get requests not to post it will receive a
note suggesting the readers who want them read them posted elsewhere.
If the response is positive, you will soon see the Internet articles.
This is one of a series of articles by Michael S. Hart titled:
"Announcing The End Of The World: Details at 11:00"
"Announcing The End of Libraries. . .Or Is It The Beginning?"
(Sub-Titled: Libraries Unchained: The End Of Libraries?"
THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
INTRODUCTION TO PART III
THE PAPERBACK COMPUTER
"The scribes of the middle ages who practiced the art of writing
pioneered a medium which would become the very foundation of
civilization. Yet for many centuries access to the written word
was confined to the few. Books were priceless, guarded by an
attendant priesthood. A single volume had the value of a farm.
Even after printing was introduced, books remained large and
expensive. It seemed unlikely that they would ever become
available to a wider public."
"The latest technology that came in at the end of the sixteenth
century was the idea of the chained library, whereby books could
be instantly accessible to anybody who visited the library, and
by simply extracting the book with the chain just long enough
for the book to be lowered from the case on to the desk in front
of the reader, and there the person could study the book as long
as they wanted, with no fear of them being able to remove it."
Canon Tiller, Master of the Library, Hereford Cathedral, England
"For books to become generally available, they had to lose their
chains, and become smaller and more affordable. Today books are
everywhere, written in hundreds of languages about thousands of
subjects, once the exclusive property of a small educated class,
they have become the foundation of modern culture.
"In the past few years a competitor to the book has begun rooting
itself in the young. . .the computer. But when the ancestors of
the modern computer first appeared some 45 years ago, they too
were fabulously expensive, and controlled by a mathematical
priesthood. The idea that computers would be commonplace seemed
ludicrous, just as the idea that illuminated manuscripts could
lead to the paperback book."
(c) WGBH Educational Association (Boston PBS TV)
Computers have only been in the lives of the public for a decade,
as personal rather than impersonal machines. . .interesting those
who named the personal computer never bothered with the linkup to
the term "impersonal computer."
However, in that single decade the cost of storing a book of some
story like Alice in Wonderland has dropped from $10 for an entire
160K single sided 8" floppy disk, to less than a nickel to put it
on a 1.44M 3.5" micro-floppy. In fact, if you used all the types
of file compression possible, and bought your disks at the lowest
prices, you could probably store Alice for a penny.
That price reduction is on the same order as the price reductions
books went through after the invention of moveable type by Johann
Gutenberg, after whom our Project has been named.
Before Gutenberg, all books in our culture were laboriously hand-
made by a priesthood of specialists in the process. Even if more
middle-class people HAD gotten their eyes on a book they wouldn't
have been able to read it. Literacy before the age of Gutenberg,
well. . .it was just about comparable to computer literacy before
the age of personal computers. . . .
The concept of the "computer on a chip" microprocessor was a huge
development. . .not only by making the computers affordable: but
with an even huger concept. . .the idea that this chip was to the
computer what a light bulb was to the age of electricity. . .your
computer chip was not repaired when it broke. . .it was easier to
just replace it. The concept of the disposable computer is a new
concept. . .so new that those of you who do not go to garage sale
events probably are not aware of it in real life: to illustrate,
I take a laptop computer I got years ago for $400, used, to do my
presentations on at my demonstrations around the country. I have
seen even more powerful computers for sale at garage sales, since
that time, and only last week saw a full boat Epson, with lots of
software, just down the street at a garage sale. . .for only $50.
The Age of the Paperback Computer is upon us. . .what will we do?
Will the chains of library books start disappearing? Will you be
able to walk in to a library, put your book on a disk, never have
to return it? Will you be able to call the library computer on a
phone line and "download" a copy of a book, never having to set a
foot in the library again other than when the actual physical and
material items are required, and not just the words in them? The
library chains have gotten longer, and have become invisible, but
they are still there. If you have read the fine print, you might
notice that you break the rules of most libraries if you take any
materials out of the locale served by the library. This is true,
even of large university libraries, where the students are always
known to take their homework with them over the holidays (well, a
portion of the students, anyway).
At the time of the change from chained libraries to those lending
libraries we identify with the term "library" today, I am sure an
incredibly similar argument ensued. Those who were the most used
to libraries in which the books were so valuable they were not to
be allowed away from their shelves were undoubtedly sure that the
policy of letting people take the newer less expensive books home
with them would. . .well. . .spell the end of libraries.
These people were used to the patrons having to remain inside the
library to do all their work. Inside, where they were supervised
and under control. . .who knows what would happen if they were to
be allowed to take the books OUT OF THE LIBRARY?
Pages might be torn, they might write in the books; the bindings,
the illustrations, the charts, were all sure to be damaged. Yes,
this was indeed going to be the end of libraries.
Of course, what we know now, is that those more expensive volumes
were consigned to the "Rare Book Room" and the "Archives" which a
glance will reveal as the portion of today's libraries that liken
to the chained libraries of old.
The library of the future will be someone similar, which a number
of books that can be had permanently, without chains, visible, or
invisible. The normal portions of today's libraries will then be
a more reserved section, containing physical materials and also a
collection of materials too new to have entered the Public Domain
and thus allowed free circulation. Since the copyright will have
been extended from the original 14 years, to over a hundred on an
average, the libraries will still have plenty to put in this part
of the library and portions of this library will slowly move from
here into the Rare Book Rooms and Archives.
Eventually the only things you will have to check out will be the
copyrighted and rare items, those things too new or too old to be
given freely.
End of Part 1 of Part I
