The Case for Books by Robert Darnton

When arguing for the importance and relevance of physical books in "The Case for Books," Robert Darnton mentions smell as a factor:

“Books also give off special smells. According to a recent survey of French students, 43 percent consider smell to be one of the most important qualities of printed books—so important that they resist buying odorless electronic books. CafeScribe, a French online publisher, is trying to counter-act that reaction by giving its customers a sticker that will give off a fusty, bookish smell when it is attached to their computers.”

Well, okay. Let’s review “The Case for Books” by smell, then. Using the Bloodhound Method of dipping my nose close to the pages and inhaling deeply (much better than the Fan Method of flipping pages), I detect a chemical smell. A second sniff reveals it as glue. To be honest, not the most appealing book scent – a bit too acidic. Any pulpy paper smell is overwhelmed by the glue scent. We could hope that the book might age well, like a wine that blooms after a decade or so, but this hope might be misplaced.

Yes, that is the first book I’ve ever reviewed by smell. And to be honest, when talking about a book that praises physical books, we might as well stop and concentrate on the very physicality of the medium.

Now to the more cerebral review.

Darnton, a pioneer of the field of the history of books, breaks “The Case For Books” into three sections – Future, Present, and Past. The Future section is the most relevant. In the four chapters in the Future section, Darnton speculates on how Google Book search will change the library landscape. We are witnessing an era when the Gutenberg Galaxy shifts to the Google Galaxy. In other words, the reign of print and ink repositories of books is giving way to the infinite Borgesian library.

Darnton is theoretically optimistic about this Google invasion, but pragmatically pessimistic. Theoretically, as a librarian for Harvard, he can’t help but to be excited by a library that dwarfs the Alexandrian library. But pragmatically –- oh, he spends chapters and chapters detailing everything that could go wrong. From Monopolies that are the antithesis of open-access (who’s to prevent Google from charging outrageous fees?) to the problem of technological transience (it's difficult to access an 8-track, and how long ago was that?) he assembles a convincing array of problems.

His only less-than-convincing point is that Google can’t scan rare books, or at least not enough of them. Aside from the fact that this could be overcome with enough time, I’m not going to complain (and neither is the rest of the world), if only a couple hundred million books are digitized. That’ll be quite enough, thanks. The goal of digitization is not to reach a totality, it’s to reach a critical mass. And that mass is approaching quickly.

Since these are essays collected from as far back as 1982, some -– even the late 90s pieces –- seem dated. No one is arguing (except in some librarian circles) that microfilm preserves better than newspaper. There’s also some overlap between essays, as we read multiple times that many subscriptions to scholarly journals can cost more than $20,000. But some are interesting because of their historical information, such as his chapter “The Mysteries of Reading” detailing the “Commonplace Book,” which was like a favorites file RSS feed of the 18th century. Readers wrote down beloved quotes, forming a self-edited compilation.

But back to the good stuff –- the Google discussion. In Chapter Three, “The Future of Libraries,” Darnton lists some wonderful suggestions on what the Google judge should do when deciding the Google settlement with authors and publishers:

• Regular monitoring of prices by a public authority
• Representation of libraries and readers on the registry
• A provision for unclaimed works to be made available for digitization by the potential competitors to Google
• A requirement that Google seek an antitrust consent decree from the Department of Justice to prevent it from abusing its monopolistic power
• Some measure to protect the privacy of individuals from Google’s all-seeing electronic eye.

These are wise suggestions for the present seismic moment, and the first four chapters are worth the price of “The Case for Books” if you’d like to educate yourself on the whole shifting literary landscape.

Comments

[avp]

Yes! I am definitely on the smell-of-books-as-major-factor side of things. I'm curious about who exactly makes up the sample of those surveyed with this question in mind. I bet book-o-philes (in the sense of 'literary types') are especially prone to reviewing books by smell. But, if the question is framed as a question of convenience, or accessibility, to a general sample, perhaps smells wouldn't be as exciting.

[Rob Toscano]

I like Old Books, not for their smell, but for their content, because I could look at a shelf and know that I've read every book on that shelf and if my recall was what it was 15 years ago, I could have recited the plot of each book in the hundreds, as I would have on the average of 300 old books a year, I would revel in the fact I was catching up to someone who read just as many. Electronically without seeing the cover to cover they are out of sight and out of mind, but by thumbing through book by book tactically, I could recall photographically in my mind a certain page moreso and I daresay I challenge anyone photographically an electronic on screen typeset page against an aged page on paper. I'd rather own a ratty copy than an expensive guilt leather collectors first edition. I hope I didn't ramble..., but the point was tactically the sense of the eye photographically retains more from paper than from screen.

Challenge.