The False Promise of WWW Enlightenment

Never before have so many people been connected together in an instantly responsive network through which memes can spread faster than natural viruses. But the notion that taking the whole world online would create a utopia of netizens, all equal in cyberspace, was always a fantasy—as much a delusion as Luther’s vision of a “priesthood of all believers.” The reality is that the global network has become a transmission mechanism for all kinds of manias and panics, just as the combinati...

 Diderot on Information Overload

As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes. When that time comes, a project, until then neglected because the need for it was not felt,...

 Shadow Libraries and the Conflict Between Preservation an...

All this to say that although barriers to acquisition are low, the barriers to active participation are high and continually increase with time. The absorption of smaller collections by larger favors the veterans. Rules and regulations grow in complexity with the maturation of the community, further widening the rift between senior and junior peers. We are then witnessing something like the institutionalization of a professional “librarian” class, whose task it is to protect the collectio...

 Tips for Parents to Encourage Reading

Read to your child. Try to read to your child every day. Read from a wide variety of materials and books. Encourage writing. Encourage your child to scribble and pretend write if they are young. Encourage older children to write stories and letters and share them with the family. Have writing materials readily available. Have reading material at home. Have a wide variety of books, children's magazines, and newspapers available for children to read or look at. Get your child a libr...