Magic Untapped
Peter Brantley has written an inspired post on what’s really wrong with the Google Settlement: it lacks imagination.
An excerpt (but read the whole thing):
The settlement describes a world of time past, not a world of possibilities. … Let us imagine an alternative world where children routinely carry Alexandria in their hands. Where they experience works of literature as games, pushing at the borders of their knowledge and experience by engaging the library with others as a festschrift…. Let us say: we want our citizens to remake these books. We shall allow unceasing access to all books within our libraries; there shall be no barriers between them. The people served by our libraries – let them show us how to re-make literature in a world where it fits in the circle of many hands, caressed by fingers, shared between minds. Libraries are laboratories for the future of reading, and with this, we have the key to it. Let us open the door of experience. We might seize this opportunity to re-think intellectual property rights and return the sunlight of insight to new generations. We stride into a world where books are narratives in long winding rivers; drops of thought misting from the sundering thrust of great waterfalls; and seas from which all rivers and rain coalesce, and which carry our sails to continents not yet imagined.
Digital books are sparkles of magic untapped. The settlement proposes a bold path from darkness. But it is a trail that circles back to an old forest, abandoned. Our people have left, ventured onto a flat savannah, strewn with rocks, thorny shrubs, windblown trees, beasts. We can see it all now. And we are starting fires, with wood from fallen trees. Burning down the forest.
Tags: public libraries, settlement