Slashdot Mirror
Public Libraries Trading Quaintness For Cash
theodp writes "To help nourish lean budgets, public libraries are increasingly eyeing the e-commerce used-book market as an alternative to the long-standing community tradition of the local book sale. Abebooks reports a tenfold surge in public library clients over the last three years. The payoff can be handsome. One library group boasts of getting $250 for a few boxes of 'miserable, horrible stuff' and another $110 from a World War II vet for a book about his Army regiment. A public library in Texas auctioned 300 items on eBay to help plug a budget hole. And a Seattle suburb moved its annual library sale of some 80,000 books to Amazon, citing expediency and extra cash as motivators."
We desperately need a physical storage medium for our knowledge. Scrolls hermetically sealed in DARK plastics would seem to last a looong time to me. Or perhaps a digital medium similar to the GOLD tablets the library of congress is thinking of.