The Great Library in the Clouds
2nd January 2011
Much of my library consists of paper books — 4000 at last estimate. They take up a lot of the space in my house; if it weren’t for them, my wife and I could survive in half the space. If I want to find one, good luck; I know roughly where it ought to be, but there are no guarantees.
The files in my LIBRARY directory (28,704 as of this minute) include full books, short stories, articles, and literally anything I can download from Google Books, Project Gutenberg, or print from the Internet through the Mac’s built in PDF printer driver; they occupy 37 GB on an external drive attached to my Mac Mini that is about the size of a Happy Meal. I keep them classified by LC number but with Spotlight I don’t even need that.
Consequently I am rapidly turning the Real Books into PDFs (what I don’t just buy in MOBI or EPUB format to begin with); they then go to the local public library, where I’m sure they’ll find a loving home.
We live in amazing times.