The Search: what ready access to everything always means
I read
Boing Boing, an online magazine-turned-blog, for updates on current net-topics. It's got great editors and a huge contributor base. Today's columns had a quote that really struck me. In a post about
Battelle's The Search: what ready access to everything always means, the reviewer, one
Cory Doctorow, had a great reaction to the book:
"I had a search a-ha moment just last week. I went looking for an out-of-print cassette recording of a radio play. None of the used-goods dealers on Amazon had any copies listed, but Amazon knew that there were several who likely had copies, and it sent them bids on my behalf. I ended up with a copy of the tapes within a couple days, for less than the original retail price. Now I'm considering giving away the 15,000 books I put in storage because I thought that if I ever wanted to read them later, I'd never find them on the used-book market. The bottom has fallen out of the search-costs for used books and buying a title I'm looking for is likely to be cheaper than paying to keep it on the shelf in London."
While it's partly a dime store epiphany, it also struck me with it's new sense of value. I'm a self proclaimed major collector and "memorabilia packrat". Is this really where things are going? I need to think on this. Frankly, those 15,000 books have to live somewhere other than a landfill. Where do you then 'dump' your stuff so that it will be saved by
someone until you decide you want to find it again? Does this extend beyond media items? What about that t-shirt from my 1988 IMEA All-state concert band? There's no way that some one will keep that for 20 years and
then try to sell it on eBay, is there?
