5 ms·

You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? The paper is brittle and the pages are literally falling apart. You can't read paper where pieces of it

You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? The paper is brittle and the pages are literally falling apart. You can't read paper where pieces of it have fallen off and disintegrated.

ncallaway 4y ago
Certainly not true of every paperback from then. I wandered downstairs and found several books on my shelves printed in the '70s, '80s, and '90s in totally fine condition. On the oldest books the paper has started to yellow a touch, but are otherwise fine. But even a book from the 90s is 20-30 years old at this point. I'm not sure if that fits colloquially with a claim that they fall apart in "months to years". I've never had a paperback book I've purchased fall apart within 5 years (hell, I can't think of a time one fell apart within 10 years with the exception of severe water damage). I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months. I have. I had one fall apart on my first read through it. Pages just dropping out of it. I also recall, as a teenager some years ago, buying a hardcover book from a store in the airport, and realizing that the last 20 pages were the previous 20 pages pasted in again. Ultimately, the books I cared about re-reading, I've replaced with ebooks. Because aside from the convenience, I don't have to worry about the book's condition, deterioration, mold, et.al.
  - Jiro 4y ago
    My AD&D Unearthed Arcana fell apart in months. Although that was notoriously bound poorly.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months. I've had the binding snap on mass market paperbacks when I opened it the first time. Not exactly a shining beacon of quality.
BashiBazouk 4y ago
I have a few sci-fi novels from the 50's that are in fine shape and many more through the 60's to 90's that are even better. Where are these people buying such poor quality paperbacks? The oldest hardback in my library is right around 300 years old and beyond a bit of foxing in quite good condition.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  They used much higher-quality paper 300 years ago, so those books don't fall apart. Somewhere in the 20th century they used really crappy acidic paper for the mass-market paperbacks. If you're looking at sci-fi novels in hardcover form, this doesn't describe those; they generally used high-quality paper. I have a bunch of those from the 70s-80s that are fine too. Go look at the crappy romance novels from the 80s, and you'll see a very different story.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Cheap pulp-based paper was a creation of the 19th century. The 1898 Report of the Librarian of Congress has an appendix titled "The Durability of Paper" addressing just this concern: <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&view=2up&seq=74&skin=2021 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&vi...>
irrational 4y ago
I have many paperbacks from the 1950s to the present day. Some of the really old ones are a little yellow around the edges, but brittle and falling apart? Never. I have no idea what you are talking about.
- obsrvatlarge 4y ago
  My shelf is full of scifi/fantasy paperbacks from 80s to late 90s. A lot of these have their binding already broken. This happens especially to small (cheap) format books of more than 500 pages. No problems with small books of reasonable lengths. At some point the number of pages in the popular books exceeded the durability of the cheap binding tech in use.
- dagw 4y ago
  brittle and falling apart? Never. How often have you read them? Many of my most beloved cheap paperbacks from the 80s and 90s have been replaced at least once since they've literally fallen apart as I was reading them. Also my books from the 50s and 60s seem to be of higher quality than books from the 80s and 90s (or that could also just be survivor bias).
II2II 4y ago
I have run across many books where the binding has disintegrated and the paper has degraded, but never to the point where a book could not be read. Assuming the book was handled with care (so that the unbound pages are not lost), every book could be read in its entirety. I'm not saying that your scenario can't happen. I am saying that I would be surprised if all but the most carefully maintained digital library would outlive the cheapest of print books. Keep in mind that, at a bare minimum, a digital library must be backed up and transferred to new media every few years. You may get away with storing digital for a decade untended, but two decades is a bit of a stretch. Also keep in mind that even the slightest amount of bit rot can make an entire book unreadable. While this isn't really true of books stored as plain text, most modern formats seem to used some sort of compressed container (e.g. ePubs are compressed).
jjav 4y ago
> You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? I own tons from the 80s, all are in perfect condition. Also a few dozen from the 70s and they're all fine. I also have a few books from the 1800s, those are hardcovers not paperbacks but also in reasonably good shape.
anthk 4y ago
I have books from 1800's in a perfect condition. Also, comic books from the 70's, 80's and 90's.
_Algernon_ 4y ago
Unless the ebook we are comparing to (from the same time period) was a literal .txt file, it is unlikely you will be able to open it on a modern computer without processing/conversion of some kind.
bonoboTP 4y ago
They can fall apart but can be re-bound. I have a bunch of such fixed books where I got the cover and the binding replaced.
dublin 4y ago
I've got a dozen or so paperbacks from the 1930s on my shelf that I read from time to time, and hundreds from later decades. Most (> 90%) are only slightly yellowed and stiff. The remaining 10% vary from crispy around the edges to falling apart. Sure, paper eventually degrades, especially cheap non acid free paper, but we know for sure (because they're in libraries and still quite readable) that the content of quality paper books can last for centuries, and probably, with good care, millennia. Keep in mind that bindings often last a lot less than that: One of the reasons genuinely old leatherbound books have those horizontal ridges on the spines is that they cover the (often also leather) laces used to re-bind the book and hold the pages together. This gave the classic works a certain look that was later replicated by publishers as just decorative ridges on the spine - but the origin of the feature was that those leather ridges were functional (they also acted as wear bumpers, but this was a secondary bonus) and a key part of the rebound book's structure! I'll add one more big item to the anti-electronic book column: It is simply impossible to build electronics that last for decades with lead-free solder. Leaded PCBs will still eventually have tin whisker problems, but the new "green/RoHS" lead-free PCBs always stop working much sooner than leaded ones. Worse yet, no one cares because obsolescence design cycles are single-digit years now. Prior to lead-free electronic controls, appliances lasted many decades: Almost all of my major appliances are over 30 years old now, and some have never been repaired at all! They're a little less efficient, but much cheaper over the long haul, as I'm not replacing them every few years - that makes them arguably better for the environment, too, as there's no waste filling the dump, either... Real books last centuries. E-books can't. We're a long way from Andromeda's "flexies"...

You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? The paper is brittle and the pages are literally falling apart. You can't read paper where pieces of it have fallen off and disintegrated.

ncallaway 4y ago

Certainly not true of every paperback from then. I wandered downstairs and found several books on my shelves printed in the '70s, '80s, and '90s in totally fine condition. On the oldest books the paper has started to yellow a touch, but are otherwise fine. But even a book from the 90s is 20-30 years old at this point. I'm not sure if that fits colloquially with a claim that they fall apart in "months to years". I've never had a paperback book I've purchased fall apart within 5 years (hell, I can't think of a time one fell apart within 10 years with the exception of severe water damage). I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months.

falcolas 4y ago
> I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months. I have. I had one fall apart on my first read through it. Pages just dropping out of it. I also recall, as a teenager some years ago, buying a hardcover book from a store in the airport, and realizing that the last 20 pages were the previous 20 pages pasted in again. Ultimately, the books I cared about re-reading, I've replaced with ebooks. Because aside from the convenience, I don't have to worry about the book's condition, deterioration, mold, et.al.
- Jiro 4y ago
  My AD&D Unearthed Arcana fell apart in months. Although that was notoriously bound poorly.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months. I've had the binding snap on mass market paperbacks when I opened it the first time. Not exactly a shining beacon of quality.

BashiBazouk 4y ago

I have a few sci-fi novels from the 50's that are in fine shape and many more through the 60's to 90's that are even better. Where are these people buying such poor quality paperbacks? The oldest hardback in my library is right around 300 years old and beyond a bit of foxing in quite good condition.

midoridensha 4y ago
They used much higher-quality paper 300 years ago, so those books don't fall apart. Somewhere in the 20th century they used really crappy acidic paper for the mass-market paperbacks. If you're looking at sci-fi novels in hardcover form, this doesn't describe those; they generally used high-quality paper. I have a bunch of those from the 70s-80s that are fine too. Go look at the crappy romance novels from the 80s, and you'll see a very different story.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Cheap pulp-based paper was a creation of the 19th century. The 1898 Report of the Librarian of Congress has an appendix titled "The Durability of Paper" addressing just this concern: <https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&view=2up&seq=74&skin=2021 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036735036&vi...>

irrational 4y ago

I have many paperbacks from the 1950s to the present day. Some of the really old ones are a little yellow around the edges, but brittle and falling apart? Never. I have no idea what you are talking about.

obsrvatlarge 4y ago
My shelf is full of scifi/fantasy paperbacks from 80s to late 90s. A lot of these have their binding already broken. This happens especially to small (cheap) format books of more than 500 pages. No problems with small books of reasonable lengths. At some point the number of pages in the popular books exceeded the durability of the cheap binding tech in use.
dagw 4y ago
brittle and falling apart? Never. How often have you read them? Many of my most beloved cheap paperbacks from the 80s and 90s have been replaced at least once since they've literally fallen apart as I was reading them. Also my books from the 50s and 60s seem to be of higher quality than books from the 80s and 90s (or that could also just be survivor bias).

II2II 4y ago

I have run across many books where the binding has disintegrated and the paper has degraded, but never to the point where a book could not be read. Assuming the book was handled with care (so that the unbound pages are not lost), every book could be read in its entirety. I'm not saying that your scenario can't happen. I am saying that I would be surprised if all but the most carefully maintained digital library would outlive the cheapest of print books. Keep in mind that, at a bare minimum, a digital library must be backed up and transferred to new media every few years. You may get away with storing digital for a decade untended, but two decades is a bit of a stretch. Also keep in mind that even the slightest amount of bit rot can make an entire book unreadable. While this isn't really true of books stored as plain text, most modern formats seem to used some sort of compressed container (e.g. ePubs are compressed).

jjav 4y ago

> You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? I own tons from the 80s, all are in perfect condition. Also a few dozen from the 70s and they're all fine. I also have a few books from the 1800s, those are hardcovers not paperbacks but also in reasonably good shape.

anthk 4y ago

I have books from 1800's in a perfect condition. Also, comic books from the 70's, 80's and 90's.

_Algernon_ 4y ago

Unless the ebook we are comparing to (from the same time period) was a literal .txt file, it is unlikely you will be able to open it on a modern computer without processing/conversion of some kind.

bonoboTP 4y ago

They can fall apart but can be re-bound. I have a bunch of such fixed books where I got the cover and the binding replaced.

dublin 4y ago

I've got a dozen or so paperbacks from the 1930s on my shelf that I read from time to time, and hundreds from later decades. Most (> 90%) are only slightly yellowed and stiff. The remaining 10% vary from crispy around the edges to falling apart. Sure, paper eventually degrades, especially cheap non acid free paper, but we know for sure (because they're in libraries and still quite readable) that the content of quality paper books can last for centuries, and probably, with good care, millennia. Keep in mind that bindings often last a lot less than that: One of the reasons genuinely old leatherbound books have those horizontal ridges on the spines is that they cover the (often also leather) laces used to re-bind the book and hold the pages together. This gave the classic works a certain look that was later replicated by publishers as just decorative ridges on the spine - but the origin of the feature was that those leather ridges were functional (they also acted as wear bumpers, but this was a secondary bonus) and a key part of the rebound book's structure! I'll add one more big item to the anti-electronic book column: It is simply impossible to build electronics that last for decades with lead-free solder. Leaded PCBs will still eventually have tin whisker problems, but the new "green/RoHS" lead-free PCBs always stop working much sooner than leaded ones. Worse yet, no one cares because obsolescence design cycles are single-digit years now. Prior to lead-free electronic controls, appliances lasted many decades: Almost all of my major appliances are over 30 years old now, and some have never been repaired at all! They're a little less efficient, but much cheaper over the long haul, as I'm not replacing them every few years - that makes them arguably better for the environment, too, as there's no waste filling the dump, either... Real books last centuries. E-books can't. We're a long way from Andromeda's "flexies"...