From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 16:58:20 MST
A distributed international library - that's a very cool idea. I'd
contribute access to my admittedly small technical library.
It needs a website for organisational purposes, so people can request books,
or find out what's available and the status of books (available, borrowed,
etc).
In the context that dead trees are the only way to legally get your hands on
a lot of important information, this is a spectacularly extropian idea. EXI
would do well to at least host the site.
Emlyn
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert J. Bradbury [mailto:bradbury@aeiveos.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 15 January 2003 4:59
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Cc: jubungalord@hotmail.com
> Subject: The ExI Lending Library [was: book availability and cost]
>
>
>
> Nathanael wrote an interesting comment about the cost of books.
>
> > The local libraries don't have any of the books I've been
> trying to get. I
> > don't have the extra cash to constantly buy books at like $20-$30
> > a piece. If anyone has any other solution to this email me.
> > I was wandering if anyone has a bunch of books sitting on a
> shelf somewhere
> > that they would get rid of at a reasonable price.
>
> This, and perhaps Anders' comments on altruism, started me thinking.
> Of course one of the barriers to transhumanistic development is a
> lack of access to the resources required to develop thinking in
> these areas. After all, look at what was required to spread
> "religions" (*not* that I am comparing Extropianism or Transhumanism
> to "religions"). It required widespread availability of books like
> the Bible or the Koran. [One could probably counter-argue that
> Catholicism and/or Islam were spread mostly by the "keepers of the
> faith", but for this discussion lets assume that having access to
> "the word" promotes its dissemination.]
>
> Now, most town or city libraries are going to have relatively few of
> the works we consider important (see for example many of the books
> on the ExI reading list or my personal reading list). University
> Libraries may be somewhat better, but many fewer people have access
> to them. It would be a highly interesting exercise to determine what
> fraction of perhaps several thousand college or university libraries
> in the U.S. have copies of either Nanosystems or Nanomedicine.
> [Someone who considers themself a hot-shot programmer, could whip
> up a perl script that could query all of the online catalogs and
> answer this question and *really* impress me!]. Now I happen to
> own 3 and 2 copies of these books respectively, though 1 copy of
> each happens to be in Moscow where I don't have easy access to
> them currently. But the point remains that I have copies of many
> extropic/transhumanist books, some read, some unread, that I would
> be more than happy to share on a temporary basis if the costs can
> be made low enough.
>
> Enter [stage left] National and International ExI Lending Libraries...
>
> What I am thinking is something like this:
>
> We try to develop a system that strikes a balance between the people
> who are resource (e.g. book) rich, but time poor with the people who
> are relatively cost constrained but time rich.
>
> I have a lot of books (really more than most people can imagine
> quantities of books). Many of these are elements of the extropic
> reading list, others are scientific & technical as well as college
> textbooks (unfortunately it would probably take weeks for me to
> create a complete online list). In addition, at least in the U.S.
> there is a 4th class book shipment rate that is relatively
> inexpensive.
> Books don't ship fast, but they get there eventually. Finally, since
> I send and receive most of my mail via a P.O. Box (a very
> good strategy
> for people prominent in the extropic/transhumanist community who think
> there is even a slight chance that they might become targets for any
> loony-toons luddite who can get their home mailing address out of
> easily accessed credit records). So I'm frequently at the post office
> and picking something up or dropping something off isn't a significant
> additional [time] cost to me (at least while I continue to
> live in Seattle).
>
> So, how would this work? It looks to me like someone who
> wants to borrow
> a book, should:
> a) be willing to pay the postage (to send/receive the book).
> b) probably be willing to send a "sticky" mailing label with
> the request
> for a book.
> c) agree to a period for the book "loan" (1-2 months perhaps based on
> book page count/technical difficulty?).
> d) agree to pay fines to ExI if they do not return the book on time.
> ($0.10/day?). [Without negative consequences some of us may not
> behave properly.]
>
> Now, the interesting thing about this is that I suspect without too
> much difficulty, it ought to be possible to develop a distributed
> lending library system. The only thing I see as potentially difficult
> is lowering international shipping costs/bureaucracy such
> that it becomes
> feasible to do this across country borders.
>
> Now, one of the interesting things about this, that might have to be
> discussed, is the fact that one may receive the high-lighting, margin
> notes, etc. of the owner of the circulating copy of a text.
> Then there
> is the problem of how one contributes to this. What I have read of
> Greg Stock's "Redesigining Humans" was in the copy Carol Tilly loaned
> to me. I had to read it with an extra pad where I could note pages
> and comments such as -- no/wrong/short-sighted/etc. to avoid defacing
> Carol's copy. But I would like to think that some people would be
> interested in what I think is important in a text -- at the same time
> I'd be fascinated by comments that Anders, Damien, Max, Greg,
> Robin, etc.
> would make on a text (since their perspectives are quite
> orthogonal to mine).
> Obviously this gets problematic after a text has been sent
> out 10+ times.
>
> Normal "reviews" don't cut the mustard. You have to be able to delve
> down into the specific points of an argument and point out precisely
> *where* it is on swampy ground. Reading an article or book
> so annotated
> is *much* more educational. It raises the interesting question as
> to whether the extropic/transhumanist vector should be to read a
> "virginal" book or an "annotated" book.
>
> I do not know if the implementation of something like this is
> feasible.
> I do know I'm willing to help explore it if others are.
>
> Robert
>
>
>
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