Two things happened today that led me towards my Bookstore Revelation.
It started first thing this morning. My routine is to get up and turn on the TV in the bedroom. Cable news is always my morning choice - CNN's American Morning. Turning on the TV happens before anything else - before coffee, before saying good morning to Mr. RenaRF, before feeding my cats and the homeless feral cat that has taken up residence in front of my house.
This morning, I got up, turned on the TV, and... nothing.
((More))
The TV was dead! Gotta say - I bought this TV in 1990. It's an RCA, probably 19" or so. It's been really, really wonderful. I got my money's worth, having a TV for 21 years!
But obviously, with the dignified death of my 19" RCA tube television, I needed to go get another one. Nothing fancy - just another comparably-sized, inexpensive TV to fill the morning news while-I-get-ready void. So, off to Best Buy I went after lunchtime. I go in there and the first thing that really surprises me is that there are NO tube TVs. None. It's been so long since I shopped for a TV that I didn't realize time has passed me by and ALL TVs are now flat panel LCD or plasma. Huh.
I'm way out of my element, here. I want something inexpensive, but I also don't want to be foolish about it - I have HD-capable digital cable, so whatever capabilities there are on this new hypothetical TV for which I am shopping should accommodate what I might grow to in the coming years. Moreover, I want to do a dry run on replacing my primary TV in the living room.
So I'm looking around, talking to the sales guy, laying out my requirements etc. I settle on a 24" Dynex LCD 1080p 60Hz refresh rate digital flat panel. The price is great with my rebates and reward points (just under $200), so the deal is done.
I take the TV in its neat, narrow little handle-box out to the car. As I'm putting it into the back seat, I see a book that I had bought for my husband that, it turns out, he has already read. It's still in its Barnes and Noble bag with the receipt, and the Best Buy, fortuitously, is right next to the Barnes and Noble, separated only by a Starbucks. So I grab the bag and head into the bookstore.
Even though it's only been a few weeks since being in Barnes and Noble, I can see the changes they've made in the store. Fully 1/4 of the store is now taken up with their big "Nook" (the Barnes and Noble e-reader competitor to the Kindle) display. I mean, it's BIG. Have you ever been to a tech trade show at a convention center? On the floor of those trade shows are exhibitions by the various vendors and sponsors. They all have elaborate backdrops, displays, product racks, a desk where multiple representatives can stand to talk to you, etc. That's what this Nook display was like - like walking into a trade show, only it took up 1/4 of the store itself.
This immediately messed me up - because where the Nook display now resided was where the bestsellers and staff recommendations used to reside, and that's what I browse first in the bookstore, just out of curiosity.
So I adjusted, went around the Nook display, found a book for myself, found one for Mr. RenaRF, and meandered over to the Black History Month books. This brought be perilously close to the Nook Guy. The Nook Guy, it was obvious, was there solely to engage shoppers in a discussion about the merits of the Nook. But, like many people, I don't like being bugged by salespeople. If I have a question, dude, I'll ask - otherwise, leave me in peace.
But the Nook Guy has a job to do and it's not going to do itself. It's relatively slow at the hour that I'm there as well, so it's not like he has a plethora of shoppers from which to choose. He comes up to me and says:
"Do you have any questions about the Nook that I can answer?"
Me: "No, thanks. I'm not really in the market for an e-reader." (this said as I cling to my two traditional books).
Nook Guy: "Any particular reason?"
Me: "Actually, yes."
Nook Guy just looked at me expectantly, so I pressed on.
Me: "I like to read in the bathtub."
Nook Guy: "We have extended warranty and care plans that..."
Me: "No, I mean most of my books are warped from reading in the bathtub. I've looked into waterproof e-reader covers and I know I could get one, but it seems like such a hassle."
Nook Guy has no response to this. That's when another thought took hold in my mind.
Me: "The big reason I have is more philosophical than anything. When I think about the arc of history, the invention of the printing press and the availability of something as common as a book moved the average human forward so dramatically. It opened a whole new world of knowledge and empowerment to people. I've always believed that printing - and books - were one of the great drivers behind the potential for Democracy. I realize that this (e-readers) is the way the modern world is going - but there's a whole unmodern world out there waiting for its revolution, waiting for a way to make their lives better, and I can't quite stomach the idea that there won't be any books left one day to help them."
Now Nook Guy really has no response. I've also attracted the two or three other customers in the store - they're listening.
Nook Guy finally recovers and says "Bet you wish we still had horses and buggies." He said this good naturedly - so I wished him a good day and set off.
My whole mini-diatribe on printing and freedom and Democracy was totally random. Until that moment where he asked me about being resistant to e-readers, the only reason I had was the bathtub thing. But it really got me thinking.
It doesn't take a great scholar to parse through the reasoning behind my statement, nor a particularly enlightened thinker to put the thought into words. But it really is an important point. Prior to 1440 AD, "books" were singular things. If they were to be reproduced, it was done largely at someone's request and by hand. The ability for the average person to afford such an extravagance was virtually nil. If you were wealthy, you could afford books. If you were not, you couldn't. All that knowledge was denied to you due to lack of means.
There are many ways for the "haves" to hold down the "have nots", even if they aren't doing it intentionally. Denying knowledge to the have nots is one way to keep them in their place.
Did you know that only 77% of Americans have internet access? That leaves 23% - almost a quarter - of Americans that don't have access to the internet. How many of those people do you think would be able to purchase an e-reader, let alone download content for it? What happens to them - to their advancement and intellectual enrichment when, one day, there are no actual books that they can check out of a library or that someone can lend to them?
America is, of course, in the top of the rankings in terms of percentage of the population with access to the internet.
But other countries - countries with great populations of poor, populations on the cusp of their own revolution (industrial, political, etc.) have much poorer internet access. In China, only 31.6% have access to the internet. In India it's 6.9%. Indonesia has only 12.3% of its population with access to the internet. These three countries represent a huge chunk of the overall human population coupled with incredible growth in each specific country. Imagine where these countries will wind up if they're able (even unintentionally) to prevent 70%+ of their respective populations from learning, from demanding more, and from growing intellectually.
I am a huge fan of technology and the internet. Hell - I work in technology. I blog from a computer and a smartphone. I tweet, I FB. I email. I'm all about embracing the freedom that technology can bring. I get that, here in the US and in other "developed" parts of the world, technology has been a huge boon to truth-tellers everywhere. It's allowed us to win elections, change history, call bullshit on the bullshitters, and generally develop our own ideas and ideals.
But I'm really stuck on one particular idea: for the rest of everybody - those who don't have access to the internet and who are very unlikely to own an e-reader let alone have the ability to download content for it - what happens when there are no more books except in selected libraries and the Library of Congress? How will they ever know the freedom that knowledge sought - and found - can bring?
I guess there's no real point to this diary except to say that - truly - some things are worth preserving. Printing and access to printed knowledge is, in my "book" (ha), one of them.