In their article “Defending a preference for physical books“, Lex Miller made some very salient points about the value of both physical books and e-books.
While e-books are most certainly more convenient and environmentally friendly, there is often something lost when you lose the experience of turning pages in a physical book. However, Van Horn’s point about the historical and cultural importance of physical books is correct but incomplete.
It is, indeed, very important that we have old texts for what it tells about the past, but the assumption that e-books won’t provide the same value for posterity is not quite right. The real issue with e-books is not that they won’t exist for the people of the future — I’m sure they will — the issue is their lack of permanence.
A printed book is printed. It cannot be altered other than ripping pages out or writing on it. The issue with e-books is that due to their flexible, digital nature they can be altered with little to no record of the revisions.
If we presuppose that something written can become inconsistent with the moral ethic of a later time, it is perfectly conceivable that authors, publishers or editors would go back and modify or rewrite passages no longer consistent with the times.
This is damaging because it will reduce our ability to understand the prevailing beliefs of past eras and will whitewash history in a sense. The ability of people to selectively remove things from the archive of the past would be a huge detriment to our society.
Letter to the editor received from Jordan Nelson