Saturday, August 1, 2009
Today's library, tomorrow's 'googlary'?
Imagine an entire library of books. Now digitized, and available online, with a convenient search function to boot. Introducing the googlary. Tell me how that is not amazing.
Is there any information that you need to look for badly? All it takes is a single click. It is that incredibly easy to find a particular book on the googlary. Aside that, it allows us to access the library from anywhere with Internet connection, as long as you have a laptop. This literally means that we are carrying the entire library around. Digitizing of books gives us more convenience due to the portability, and we do not have to spend so much time just to travel to the library to find some information.
Of course, digitizing of books also allow us to cut down on the usage of papers, thereby reducing the amount of trees cut down for the manufacturing of papers. Thus, in a sense, the googlary is eco-friendly. In addition, digitizing of books allow the information inside to be preserved for as long as one wants it to be. Compare this with conventional books made of paper which are bound to be food for worms as time goes by.
It may seem like the googlary is the future, and it has absolutely no drawbacks. But recovering from the initial excitement and thinking about it, I find that it may not be so. For one, if the servers hosting the digital libraries crashes due to technical problems, it can be a pain in the arse to try to repair the problem and then restore the library.
And it may just be me, but I find that reading books from the computer just feels uncomfortable and weird. It just does not feel right. Not to mention that reading for long hours on a computer can be torturing for the eyes. Perhaps we are too used to reading a paper book as compared to e-books, but holding a paper book in the hands seems to feel more normal to me.
