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I think many people (myself included) underestimate just how much knowledge is still tied up in books. I thought I'd repeat this anecdote I previously posted o
by design-of-homes 11y ago
I think many people (myself included) underestimate just how much knowledge is still tied up in books.
I thought I'd repeat this anecdote I previously posted on a discussion about libraries a while ago.
A few years ago I was researching the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. I wanted to find out about his famous housing complex called Unité d'habitation (Housing Unit) first built in Marseille in France. I started my research online looking for floorplans and commentary or critques. I found very little (there is a lot more available online today, but not when I was looking).
Consider that Le Corbusier is one of the most famous architects of the 20th century so this was a surprise. Eventually, I did find what I was looking for by going to the library and visiting an architecture exhibition. The point of all this is that we assume everything is mostly online and so it's our first port of call for any research or knowledge gathering. But there is a huge amount of information and knowledge found in books that have never made it online. If you never go to the library, you simply won't realise what you're missing.
- peruvian 11y agoI realized this when learning programming. Sure, the "Learn X Technology" books are outdated within a year (my university's library is full of them, they should be recycled!), but a lot of the best computer science knowledge is in dead tree format.
- panglott 11y agoMuch of this is the weight of copyright restrictions. There is a ton of material published between say 1940 and 1980, that is still under copyright but hopelessly out of print. As physical objects, they're getting old enough that soon they won't really be available outside library/archival settings. It's many thousands of books per year for decades, lots of original research and writing.