My attitude to books — real books as objects rather bizarre way .First I bought knigi.Eto were " just good " books that I was not going to immediately read — many of them have remained unread , and now they are sending off the shelves in my direction fleeting rays of guilt every time you look at them falls . It seemed to me that I " collect personal library ." Also, I could not imagine even the possibility to sell or throw away the book that I did not like , or that I just will not re-read , the very thought of it seemed to me impossible.I gradually realized that my attitude towards books has changed dramatically. By the time I got used to the idea of the network as the main source of information, though usually much more convenient than going to the library or even in the next room to the bookcase . Number of books available in the network, increased daily , not only in Russian but also in English (though not in such a public domain, as in the Russian network). I used to read long texts and entire books from the screen — no, this is not entirely true — I used it often worked , but I no longer consider it the worst , second-class way of reading , compared with a real book in your hands . Moreover, over time, I began to feel some irritation at the thought of all the books that I have the feeling that they have all their weight as it pressed against the ground. Anyway , I thought, I do not really complete library in which it would be all that would have interested me , at least from the classical and well-known authors , not to mention the updates — and never will be, because this takes ten times as much space , and I was already burdened the existing cabinets . As I saw a vague ideal of a fully digital library that exists in one place on your hard drive (not counting a backup). Yes , text files, may not be as easy to read as a book , and certainly not easy to make notes in the margins (but I am also in the books they never do , however). But how well , I thought, the book be a file , rather than gathering dust bar of dead wood on the shelf! The file can be in one second to find what you're looking . File, you can instantly share with anyone and reproduce in any number of copies. I 've never had much respect for the physical embodiment of the book , I always understood that it is infinitely more important than the content . But the file — this is the focus of the content in one place, free from the tyranny of the three-dimensional material.If the book has been available online, I will download it , and did not buy the printed version .Finally , again slowly and almost imperceptibly to myself, there was another shift in my attitude to the books. At first I did not know why, was trying to print a large text or a book instead of reading from the screen (I do not know why: I have not worsened vision , reading from the screen was unpleasant for me , I discovered reading prints it and I used to be very familiar — but somehow subtle way it began to seem to me more appropriate and enjoyable). In a strange way I got back to the long-standing preference for the book -as- object -as- book file, but with significant changes . I do not care anymore that I do not have specific books that I read and consider important: I'm not going to buy them only in order to improve and fill up " the library" — and generally buy only what is immediately going to read (even though does not always work out for different reasons). Libraries feeling disappeared with a capital letter, from which , once having got into it, the book will not disappear. I generally like it's my new attitude to books , though somewhat alarming is that all these changes happened as described above would be out of my own will , not by conscious choice , but the source of our preferences and decisions — a topic for another discussion.
