That was perhaps not what he expected her to show him, but even so, there are many good things to see in the library.

No, I am not trying to make an end to them, although I suppose that is what would happen if people started thinking. (Because when people start thinking, they usually stop soon.) Every civilized country has public libraries, even that bastion of capitalism where you are otherwise supposed to earn your own way through life and where copyrights just go on and on for generations after the author’s passing. So why?

“Why” can mean “what was the cause” or “what is the purpose”. For the current libraries, the cause is probably that there have always been libraries, or at least for so long that people have forgotten their purpose. But the purpose certainly seems to be to let people read books for free.

Now there are two ways of reading library books: Either at the library, or you can borrow them home with you. If you borrow them, you have to return them after a few weeks. But there is nothing to stop you from coming to the library every single day and read the same book, unless someone else has got to it first. So clearly the purpose of returning the books is not to limit access to reading, but simply to keep the costs down by letting many people read the same book.

Enter the Internet. I know I have written about this before, but it is so long ago that perhaps I am saying this in a different way. Or at the very least, since then Google has continued to scan millions of books from around the world. But I know I said the same thing then as now: If libraries had been invented now, they would have been forbidden. If we had known the value of reading today as we did when it was new, they would be freely available on the Internet.

Now you may argue that if people can afford Internet access, then they can also afford to buy their own books. This is less and less true for each passing years, as computer and internet access become cheaper and cheater and more and more fundamentally necessary for a normal life – while books become more expensive if anything. But it is also a moot point from the “Internet=library” point of view. In all the years I used public libraries, I never had to present documentation of my poverty. It was probably assumed that if I really loved a book and had the money to buy it, I would.

Certainly this is the assumption of Baen Free Library. In fact, they claim on the very first page that they expect to make money of it, both the publishing house itself and the authors who participate. Ironically, such a transparent self-interest may deter some who would otherwise have acted in sympathy, but it is the more commendable for honesty. As Flint – himself an accomplished writer – says, what author would not be happy to see someone checking his book out of a public library? There may be such cretins, says Flint, but their books probably would get little love from those who got a chance to break them open before buying them.

(Incidentally, the music “pirates” have argued along the same line for years, but their pleas fall on deaf ears. Seriously, how many CDs have you bought without having heard at least one of the tracks beforehand? The notion that radio stations should pay to play music rather than getting paid for it is utterly, clinically insane. It is as if newspapers should pay to print advertisements. Of course, with modern file sharing technology, the advertisement IS the product. A golden age of opportunity has passed for the recording labels. But if the experience of Baen is anything to go by, the recording companies are still shooting themselves in the foot. Or, as a Norwegian commenter put it, shooting their prosthesis, as the foot is shot to pieces long ago.

Then again, perhaps books are different, appealing to the more intellectual in particular. (Although, if you randomly sample a bookstore, it is hard to give credit to that theory.) In any case, if free books in the library are a good thing, then free books on the Internet should also be a good thing. In fact, since most people still find reading paper easier than reading computer screens, people are unlikely to commit the crime of reading books just to taunt the authors or publishers. Their motivations are probably at least as good as (or at least stronger than) the average library visitor.

It is no big surprise that the US government prefers to let Google do the job. But it is rather amusing (in a scornful way) that the social democrat countries of Europe are unwilling to build good public libraries on the Net. Especially if you have a language different from the emerging World Language, your only realistic hope of delaying its death is to throw at your public every word and sentence available in the local tongue. In fact, you should probably pay them to read if you value your national heritage so much.

Anyway, I’ve already mentioned Baen, a pretty limited initiative. I’ll also remind you of Questia which is a partly free and partly paid library, with a particular angle toward students and the academia. But the tidal wave that may eventually absorb the phenomenon of books into the bitstream is Google Book Search. Despite the unassuming name, Google has scanned and stored literally millions of books, some of which can be read in their entirety or even printed out. (Please, think of the trees!)

I can’t say I mind too much that governments make themselves less relevant. The time is drawing near when governments as we know them will come to an end. The next level of consciousness will have no need for such structures, but will cooperate seamlessly like members of one loving family. It will probably not be in my time, more’s the pity. But all things will either change or end, most likely within this century. The age of books is also coming to an end, but not because we throw them away. Rather, they become drawn into the noosphere, and like ourselves they become gradually less physical, less confined in space and time. Our fates are linked, for without the books, our cultural evolution would have been incredibly hard or perhaps even impossible. The world we know, we owe to the book. In some form, it will always be with us, until the end of the world as we know it.