Searching vs browsing

[oursin]

Further to early comment about searching vs browsing.

Obviously, sometimes searching is the only way to go, when after something very clear and very specific. It may very well, for example, find you a particular book. What it won't supply is the serendipitous discovery. It may also be too focussed and fail to give due weight to context (I think of

Comments

[hunningham]

And the trouble with second-hand bookshops moving online is that I can no longer browse bookshelves and so have lost the serendipitous discovery. Within easy reach I have "A History of the Guillotine", "Dr.Bowdlwer's Legecy", "Daughter of the Samuri", "My Recollections by the Countess of Cardigan" and Cobbett's "Advice to a Lover; none of which I would own or even know about if it wasn't for discovery by browsing.