piXel mind

A lifetime and a half ago, every other week, I would drive eight and some hours, from Buffalo NY to Maryland. I was still finishing my graduate work. My then boy-friend (now husband) was working in Maryland. Before the dinner and movie that marked the start of our two days together, we met up at a place that either of us would enjoy spending time at if the other was delayed. We met at the Borders store. A decade later, today when I am weary of soul and mind, I take a walk. My meandering feet almost always seem to take me to a neighborhood Borders.

It seems that this book seller is now in trouble. The descent of the ubiquitous bookseller is understood by most  by its juxtaposition against the ascent of the online retail experience and the raise in popularity of the e-book. Like many, I am thankful for the existence of on-line shopping. Unlike many, who lament the reduced reading experience, I actually like my kindle.  But still, I feel keenly the possible loss of the bookstore. I fear even more the possible loss of the personal library.

There is more to a book that the reading and understanding of it. There is more to a book store, or a library, or someones book shelf, than just the physical mechanism to hold many books. I wish I could make a list of all the things that would be amiss if actual book stores disappeared and only virtual stores remained in place. I find that I cannot. I can only tell you that my feet always take me to a bookstore. I never choose to wait for someone in a mall. It gives me joy to look at peoples book shelves. The serendipity of walking the aisles of a book store or library can never be replaced by a cover flow UI. The ubiquity of large, expansive stores filled with books, whispered to me something about the people that they served. If every book were to be digitized and given to me, and all book stores removed, I would be diminished.  Even when the information and the reading experience is well preserved, something is lost when we loose those physical entities.

I wish that every book store in trouble would be bought by Amazon and every record store by Apple. I do not mind consuming the content digitally. But I lament the loss of the storefronts and every thing else that this loss entails.