Farewell,Libraries? 圖書館,再見?

' recent announcement that sales of e-books at the online megastore had overtaken sales of hardcover books came as no surprise . It had to happen sometime . But the news did conjure quite an interesting mental image : libraries that from now on will look smaller an less crowded . The habits of readers may not change . But their enviroments will . Theoretically , your space will be more spare , more serenely uncluttered . That's the theory, at experience is that stuff expands to fill the space available. But you can dream.

亞馬遜網站最近宣佈，這個超大網上商店的電子書銷量已經超過精裝書，這不奇怪。這種情況早晚都會發生。但是，這條消息確實讓人們的腦海裏出現一幅有趣的畫面：從現在開始，圖書館會顯得更小一些，也不那麼擁擠了。讀者的習慣也許不會改變，但他們的環境會改變。從理論上說，你的空間會更大，更整齊清爽。至少理論上如此。按照我的經驗，東西會自動增加，去填取可用的空間，但你可以盡情想象。

All of this has already happened big time in the music business, where downloads have gradually but surely replaced CDs. All those CDs taking up space on the wall —gone those CDs that travel from car to kitchen to bedroom to living room ,with the CD and the case getting separated somewhere along the way —a problem no more in the digital age . From now on , we'll own what might be described as the idea of stuff, since the actual physical things —records, tapes, photographs, CDs, and now books —have been as good as vaporized , with the information contained therein stored away on hard drive.

這一切很大程度上已經出現在音樂行業，下載音樂逐漸在穩步地取代CD。所有佔據牆上空間的CD都不見了。所有從汽車拿到廚房再拿到臥室再拿到起居室的CD，途中CD跟包裝盒失散——這些在數字時代已不是問題。從今天開始，我們擁有的東西或許可以稱作“東西的概念”，因爲有形的東西，包括唱片、磁帶、照片、CD，現在加上書，幾乎全部蒸發，其中包含的信息都存在硬盤中。

This ,of course ,is merely collateral damage in the digital revolution, if ddamage it is . There's as yet no way to tell if this transition is good ,bad ,both ,or neither, but surely the absence of a physical library maks a fundamantal shift in the way we lived and think about things . In music ,foe example ,the rise of iTunes ,Pandora ,YouTube ,and all the other online music purveyors has quickly eroded our devotion to the long—playing albums as the principal means of organizing music . After a half century of neglect, the lowly single is back on top immediately this has repercussions for artists, maybe not so much for the people who buy their music . But who knows?

這一切當然只是數字革命的“附帶損害”。如果確實稱的傷是損害的話。目前還沒辦法確定這種轉變是好是壞，還是即好又壞或不好不壞，但有形圖書館的消失標誌着我們生活方式和我們的思考方式方式發生根本改變。以音樂爲例：我們曾經忠實的把長時間播放的專輯作爲組織音樂的主要方式，但iTunes 、潘多拉、YouTube和各種其他在線音樂的發展迅速打破這一點。被忽略了半個世紀後，卑微的單曲重新佔據優勢。這對藝人的影響最直接，對買他們音樂的人或許沒太大關係，但誰知道呢？

With books ,the absence of packaging does nothing to contents . I can buy a hardcover copy of Moby—Dick or download it into an e-reader, and Melville is still Melville . But I grew up loving Rockwell Kent's illustrations of that novel, and later Barry Moser's 's hard to think of the book without them. I can do that ,centainly ,but some little is lost.

就書而言，沒有包裝對內容毫無影響。我可以買一本精裝的《大白鯊》或把內容下載到電子書上，梅爾維爾還是梅爾維爾。但是，我從小到大都喜歡羅克韋爾·肯特個這部小說配的插圖。難以想象這本書少了那些插圖。當然，我能接受，但是還是少了些什麼。

I come from a generation for whom the books and records on the shelf signaled ,in some way ,who you were . If you visited a friend , you took the first chance you had to surrepititiously scan that friend's Kindle, but is that the same ? And try that kind of snooping on a bus or in a coffee shop and you'll probably get arrested.

對我們這代人來說，架上的書和唱片在某種程度上標誌着你是什麼樣的人。如果去拜訪某一位朋友，你會抓住第一時機偷偷掃一眼朋友的書架，瞭解一下這個人。我猜，我也可以窺視朋友的“金讀”電子書，但是這一樣嗎？要是在公共汽車或咖啡店這樣探頭探腦，你大概會被抓。

The stuff of our lives is a comfort . We look up at the shelves and we see old friends.(Yes, there are books on my shelves that aren't my friends, that I haven't finished or even started,but someday I will , I promise—my home library is a physical manifestation of ambivalence. ) There ia comfort in the continuity of seeing the same books year after year . I guess there might be some of the same pleasure in scrolling through a digital library or music playlist, but somehow I think something will be lost.

生活中的物件對我們是一種安慰。擡頭看一眼書架，我們看到的是老朋友。（不錯，書架上有些書不是我的朋友，我沒有讀完甚至壓根就沒讀過，但有朝一日我會讀——我的家庭圖書館是矛盾心理的有形體現。）年復一年看到同樣的書給人以安慰。我猜，滾動數字圖書館或音樂播放表或許也會產生類似的快樂，但不知怎麼的，我還是覺得少點什麼。