On 30-3-2015 11:21, Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
> Hi(gh)!
>
> On 29.03.2015 10:05, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Libraries?
>> The main library where I live has turned itself into an internet cafe.
>> And they keep selling off their books.
>>
>
> Internet café... trading quality literature for second- and third-class
> content snippets, ignorant bulletin board rants, conspiracy loony
> propaganda and Chick gospel tracts! Poor, poor world!

In about 10 to 15 years, I have seen the quality content of the local 
public library books stock here drop down from high and broad to average 
and narrow. The selling off of their quality books has enabled me to 
salvage a number of (in my view) important works although I sadly missed 
a large number of them. When replaced, they were by the flotsam of 
today's printing press under the regulation that that is what the public 
wants and governed by shrinking budgets. 'Books are a thing of the 
past', they say.

>
> I think copyrights on books should expire 20 years after publication (at
> least with maps, it's this way in Germany - they are counted for
> whatever reason as databases, which may be copied freely 15 years after
> initial publication!), not 50, 70 or 100 years after the author's death
> - then we could drastically improve the Internet's content - let alone
> full-text searching and all those features which come with digitalizing!
>

Maybe. I fear it would hardly improve the quality; the net is too vast. 
On the other hand, I must say that with appropriate searching know how, 
there is a vast store of knowledgeable stuff out there which we did not 
have access to in the past.

-- 
Thomas

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