"I may use it as an ashtray, a paperweight, a doorstop or even a missile to throw at silly young men who make fatuous remarks. So, think again."If you expect residual value, then you have to treat it like it has value --if you treat it like it's valueless, then it will be valueless (from an economic standpoint). And there's nothing wrong with that --you got your value from it when you read it. Just don't get annoyed with me when you find out that a copy in Fine condition with a Fine dust jacket is now going for $1000 and your copy without a jacket and with dog-eared pages and a coffee ring is barely worth $20
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Books that are scanned into an optical medium will also last for centuries. It depends on what you consider is the book: the paper pulp and fabric, the glue? Or is it the words themselves? Fry is obviously saying the latter is what counts with him and he doesn't care as much about the former. He's also implying that book collectors *only* care about the former, which is a bit harsh. I think most people who collect books are interested in a particular type of book for the love of that type, or a particular author, etc. The people who do it as an investment are probably relatively rare.
I'm not talking about things like manuscript letters or even limited editions. I doubt today's printer is going to get away with dropping his ham sandwich on a finished print run. I'm talking about things like the new Margaret Atwood or Jonathan Coe. Those books don't and won't have value of themselves unless you're talking about thousands of years' time, in which case they'd have to be locked in a vault or something. In that case it's definitely not worth my time not to read that book in the bath, or buying a version I can read on my PDA instead of a dead-tree one. What would I get out of preserving it? I don't even have heirs.
Original selling price is of extreme interest to used booksellers. The price on the jacket flap is quite often listed as a "point". Furthermore, all old/antiquarian/collectible books once started off new, and first edition Margaret Atwoods are worth more to us than later editions. It hardly takes thousands of years. Take Harry Potter for a prime example.
On the other hand, consume by fire if you wish. It only makes them more rare and valuable to us later on.
This is a matter or great concern, not only to booksellers, but to special collection librarians who agonize over the loss of letters. Email is quickly and easily lost and deleted and all those other correspondences will not be found in later authors. I do have it on relatively good authority, that even a CD is only good for about 10 years. Also I am reminded of the huge hoopla in the British parliment about the switch to writing their laws on paper vs. vellum, as we all know, paper is far more fragile and doesn't have the same longevity. Moreover, Eco wrote some interesting things on the transitory and fragile nature of cellulose. Weeping every time he pick up a Gaillimard.
My reading is not that it is about the disposability of books so much as about the disposability of ideas and words. For "Trefusis", the book itself is merely the medium for the content -- the important stuff.
His distain is for those who are more worried about the wrapping than the content, who are more concerned with preserving a book's pristine state than contemplating or sharing the knowledge it contains.
"Just don't get annoyed with me when you find out that a copy in Fine condition with a Fine dust jacket is now going for $1000 and your copy without a jacket and with dog-eared pages and a coffee ring is barely worth $20."
Amen. Personally, it's your book, do with it what you please. But on a professional level, I kind of think of my job as an adoption agency, good books seeking a good home. Ultimately, while an antiquarian bookseller and special collections librarians may do some hissing across the table for either defacing books (this means you libarians with your stamps, etc.) or erasing provenance (oops, that's me, sorry, not an association copy)we both maintain a professional courtesy for preserving a literary heritage until it finds itself out of circulation and languishing in some institution.
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Re: optical mediums lasting centuries...There are several problems with that ( ... )
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On the other hand, consume by fire if you wish. It only makes them more rare and valuable to us later on.
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I think those will take a *very* long time to acquire collectible status. Perhaps post the next holocaust.
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His distain is for those who are more worried about the wrapping than the content, who are more concerned with preserving a book's pristine state than contemplating or sharing the knowledge it contains.
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Amen. Personally, it's your book, do with it what you please. But on a professional level, I kind of think of my job as an adoption agency, good books seeking a good home. Ultimately, while an antiquarian bookseller and special collections librarians may do some hissing across the table for either defacing books (this means you libarians with your stamps, etc.) or erasing provenance (oops, that's me, sorry, not an association copy)we both maintain a professional courtesy for preserving a literary heritage until it finds itself out of circulation and languishing in some institution.
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