alt Hacker NewsI was at UVU recently with some time to spare, looking for old bound magazines just for some browsing.
Decades ago there were rows and rows of bookshelves, with these bound magazines, going back to the 1880's. It was so interesting to look through them.
But now there was nothing, zippo, left of that. Just huge areas with completely empty shelves. Apparently it happened fairly recently, and the bookshelves hadn't been removed yet.
I asked the reference librarian where you could look through these, online. But she came up empty, unless you're actually a student and have access to their special subscriptions that may have these old magazines.
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Yes, exploration, discovery. One doesn't stumble across items available on inter-library loan.
I could not count the number of books I picked up and enjoyed, even if only for a short while, whilst I was studying at uni.
I have even experienced this in my personal life -- I like in NYC and when I moved here I had to get rid of a ton of books. The ones that I could not bring myself to part with ended up in boxes in my parent's basement where they remain to this day.
Many of my fondest memories growing up was browsing the bookshelves in my childhood home, discovering books that I remember to this day. Now I read almost exclusively on my kindle and the browsing experience is just so terrible. I feel I have failed my children in a real way by not giving them access to this.