Obsolete Upon Printing

I was speaking to my father about Wesch and some of the points I discussed in my last post and we got into deep discussion about the reference in the Mindset List to students having to "discover how to research information in books and journals and not just on-line." He made the comment that this was just the older generations not wanting to let go of the "written word." He also mentioned how, he would send out documents back in his programming days and, because he was constantly editing the documents, he would include a disclaimer with each document that declared it was "obsolete upon printing." Just like that, as soon as someone pressed "print," the document they were printing was already obsolete. I mulled this statement over in my mind throughout the day today and I just wanted to share my thoughts. So.. here it goes...


I remember there have often been teachers that require that a certain number of sources for a paper I was to write be non-electronic (ie, book, newspaper, journal, etc). But do you know how often I ACTUALLY used a written document for these sources? Rarely. I would find a pdf version of a written document on the Internet so I could still cite it as though I'd gone to the library and checked out the book.. I'd even have page numbers! But I was still using a digital copy... And I make no apologies for it. In a lot of cases, this saved me a LOT of time, as I would be able to search the document/journal/book for key words that related to my paper and found relevant information or quotes versus spending hours wading through 200 pages of a book to find one tidbit of information. 


This leads me to think about what a waste books in print are. Take for example my alma mater, UNC. There are close to 20 libraries across the campus, including the Undergrad Library, Wilson Library, and Davis (Main) Library. Just these three libraries alone house 15+ floors of books. Of the books in these three libraries, I would say it's a safe estimate that 80% of these books are cracked open only once or twice a YEAR or less (and I honestly think I'm being generous with that estimation). Yet  they are taking up space all year long. What if we digitized all of the books in these libraries and put them on a server? They could probably all fit on a server the size of one floor of the library. Hell, you could probably fit ALL the books from ALL the libraries across the campus in a server that big. Then you've opened up TONS of usable space, all across campus! In conjunction with this, UNC has a relationship with many of the surrounding colleges, where if they don't have a book you need but, say, Duke does, you can have it sent to UNC for your use. Again, if their collections were also digitized, we would just need a passcode to sign into their server and it would be available instantaneously. No waiting for it to be delivered, no time wasted by some kid at the other college trying to track down the book, no gas wasted in transport. And no more worrying about whether or not the book you need is checked out or if the person that has it checked out will bring it back when they're supposed to! Multiple people could simultaneously access the same document or book.


Another great thing about everything being digitized? The ability to edit! Think about it: considering how constantly and rapidly we are changing, learning, discovering, and rediscovering the world around us, anything in print is already obsolete the MINUTE it's printed, just like those documents my dad was sending out. If everything was digital (and remained digital), our documents could potentially be modified and updated in REAL TIME. No more need for a new version of a book to be released each year with minimal changes. Think about how much money this would save college students! 


Now before everyone starts picking apart my post, I know that there are obvious pitfalls and negatives.. I'm an optimist and a dreamer, but I'm not an idiot :) I just thought it was an interesting direction my mind went and I wanted to share...