Looks around suspiciously How did you get into my house, and what are you looking for? While I appreciate the convenience of ebooks, there is a certain sensuous pleasure to the smell, feel and appearance of real, honest-to-god paper books. I have tried to read for fun on my device, but I just cannot do it. The urge to just curl up around a real, physical book is too comforting to give up.
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No, just the company being shut down by the government. Or going out of business. No need for a “catastrophe” to take out the servers.
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I think that depends on the kind of research… for an undergrad paper, sure… if you’re a historian, english prof, philosopher you’re going to be looking at a variety of texts from government documents, to old manuscripts, to newspapers or magazines (often in microfilm), in my case, zines and records, or even various kinds of material culture, clothing, furniture, weapons, cars, etc… or oral histories (either that you or someone else has taken). Journals are going to help you keep up with your field, primarily, rather than act as a primary source.
I’ve done all of these…
I have to agree. The cloud (ie, someone else’s computer) is great to have back up copies of, but it’s not a silver bullet. Especially as technologies morph and change in the coming centuries (look at me, being optimistic that we’ll be there in centuries!). I think I come down on the side of all of these formats together. Having physical, microfilmed, and digital copies of all of these things are a great idea. Sometimes, a digital copy isn’t quite enough, depending on what’s being done with it. There is something to be said for looking at the physical copy when possible.
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Although most of your research libraries use LC classification rather than Dewy…so perhaps Putnam would be more appropriate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Putnam#/media/File:Herbert_putnam.jpg
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Fields are different sure, but at least in the sciences it’s the other way around. Undergrads may get their info from books, which are generally textbooks or popularizations but all primary research is in journal articles, and one of the first things a grad student learns is that nobody is going to write a book explaining the new research they need in their projects in time for them to use it so they have to read (the often poorly written) journal articles.
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Having just stuck an onion in my belt and told the neighborhood children to get off my lawn, I’ll observe that many of my professor friends (at R1s, R2s, SLACs, HBCUs) report that it’s hard nowadays to get even grad students to read. Maybe we’re all just seeing the past thru rose-tinted cataracts, but it could be possible that reading in general has declined. Being absolutely honest, I read less than I used to. Even though I’m an English professor, there are just so many non-literature distractions available now that were not available in the past: videogames, all sorts of stuff to read on the web, cat videos, porn, weirdos on Reddit to check out, the constant churn of stomach-churning political news, etc. Maybe everyone’s reading less.
What about the uptick in hardcover sales at bookstores? Maybe that’s the same as watches. Now that watches are largely useless for most people, they’ve increased in size and grandiosity. Maybe hardcover sales are a form of social signalling, a prestige item. Maybe they’re being purchased by the last remaining book enthusiasts–like that Burgess Meredith character in that Twilight Zone episode.
Who knows? Me, I still read, just not as much, and I read on a Kindle as much as I can. Moving books so many times as I chased the elusive tenure-track position left me so traumatized that my back twinges when I take my kids to the public library. Mercifully, my field is contemporary poetry, so the books I have to have fit comfortably in less than 60 feet of shelf space.
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Maybe so! And roger that!
Sure, but again, fields are different. And of course, journal access matters to the humanities, too, as we need to keep apprised of our fields as much as you need to do the research (which in some cases can come from journals, depending on the field). We DO need access to other archives, though. And books that might not be digitized, etc.
Well, that’s god damn depressing! If grad students aren’t reading…
I actually disagree. I think people are actually more literate, they just focus on reading stuff online and writing to each other on a regular basis. That’s still reading (and writing) even if it’s not Moby Dick or whatever article I assign for the week…
I did… or rather, I was reading specifically for my comps then dissertation. I’m still reading for what will hopefully one day grow up into a book, but I’m also current reading some fiction which I’d done much less of recently. And I do read stuff here (all y’alls words, articles here, on places like Jezebel, the root, i09, buzzfeed, 3quarks daily, the guardian, etc). I think that all qualifies as reading, even if it’s not James Joyce or Sam Delany…
Maybe for some, but I buy books with the intent to read them, even if I don’t get to them for a couple of years…
This sucks… you found, one, though eh?
Not mine… 3 readers in a single house does not make for a small collection!
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My partner makes up for my collection of slim poetry books by being an art historian. Art books are made of lead and depleted uranium.
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Yeah… art historians have us all beat by miles!
Well, the cheap and thin ones are! 
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So your house will be safe when the nukes drop. Cool!
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