Thinking out loud

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Of e-books and book racks

I once dreamed of having a library of my own; you know, the kind that Uncle Scrooge had; one with a ladder and huge racks lining an entire room, an easy chair and a small fireplace. Then I found e-books. Thousands upon thousands of them. And then there was talk of book readers which more and more closely mimick real books without taking up that space. So supposing they finally made one real-book look-alike capable of storing a million books, what would I decorate my study-room with? Much of the charm of real books is being able to put them up in a rack where visitors can come and stare at them with awe. The books you have in your book-racks convey, in some sense, the kind of person you are. With all the million books now hidden away in a tiny device lying around on a desk, who/what will tell visitors to my house what kind of person I am? I think I'll still keep real books around. After all, a library with so many books that you need a ladder is so cool!

4 Comments:

  • in the age of ebooks, i look at orkut profiles to see which (e)books they have read.

    By Blogger Manas Pathak, at 3:53 AM  

  • and when u do make such library, i shall be a persistent frnd coming to that room of urs, which shall house the ladder, the seat, the fireplace, the racks, and last of all, the books :D

    By Blogger vishnoi, at 4:14 AM  

  • even i'd love to have such a library...the sound of it is soo magical!

    By Blogger Aparajita Paul, at 2:35 PM  

  • I came across something called a librarything (http://www.librarything.com). Its a virtual bookrack(s). One good feature is that we can find out others who own similar books. Does that lead to anything useful? May be. May be not.

    By Blogger Sabarish Sasidharan, at 10:01 AM  

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