Avi
What’s the importance of bookbinding in a digital age?
Michael
My friend who owns several bookstores often laughs at me. “We’re in a dying trade,” he says. Too often, I have to agree with him. But when I get sick of all the information beaming at me through the computer and over the radio and tv, a book made of paper can be just the thing. It’s nice to handle something that is still unplugged. The other thing is that so much of the digital world is actually more ephemeral than the physical world. I have ten year old computer files that I can’t read. How long will a Nook last? Last night I was reading a book by Ernie Pyle about the Second World War when my wife walked into the room. It dawned on me that she was in our bedroom, but I was watching our navy transports unload soldiers on the beaches of Sicily. I was plugged in but the book wasn’t. Then it will go back onto the shelf until someone else picks it up…ten, twenty, twelve hundred years from now. (via Bookbinding in the Digital Age: an interview with Michael Greer – Boing Boing)