Paul Stenquist wrote:
I have a copy of Langhorne's Plutarch that was printed and bound in 1810, and it's in better condition than the vast majority of the books I purchased in the seventies. They knew how to make them back then and cost was no object. (The covers are calf and the spine is gilt.) Today's books will be lucky to survive two decades let alone 200 years. Mass production and cost control has rendered printed books almost as temporary as the images on your computer screen.
Every advancement in printing technology so far has been at the expense of quality. The transition from hand-written manuscripts to Gutenberg's movable type in the 15th century. The transition from movable type (letterset) to offset printing in the 1970's. And many smaller steps along the way.
But each step also made books less expensive and more accessible to a greater number of people. The transition to electronic form will make books less expensive before long (and will make it much less difficult to get published - right now it's be more difficult to get a book published than in... I don't know how long). But it's also going to make books *less* accessible to a lot of people, particularly in less developed nations. Of course, the people and market forces behind the change don't give a f%#@ about that, but it's still worrying.
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