[LINK] "A Certain Kind of Serendipity"

[rfmcdonald]

At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew Barton reflected on news of the prospective closing of Toronto's World Biggest Bookstore--one of many bookstores around the world facing potential or actual closing as a result of the advent of online shopping--and fears for future book readers. Will they be able to effectively browse?

When I go to a bookstore, unless I'm checking to see if the new Analog and Asimov's are finally out yet, I don't know what I'm getting or even if I'm going to get anything. That's even more true when I visit a used bookstore, the sort of place that made me aware of the possibilities that were out there to begin with. Walking the shelves in a magazine store leaves you open to discovery, primed for finding things you didn't even know you were looking for. In a store you look this way and that, bouncing from thing to thing, making discoveries you would never have thought to look for yourself. Perhaps you didn't even know they existed.

In contrast, the online catalogs I've used on the exceedingly rare occasions I've bought books off the internet - cases in which the particular book I was looking for just couldn't be found anywhere in the physical realm - have been set up with the assumption that you already know what you want. None of the online directories I have experience with are able to replicate the ease of browsing, of having your attention drawn by a particular book's spine or title or cover. Sometimes it's the unexpected finds that are the sweetest, like when I found a weathered copy of The Third Industrial Revolution in Powell's, a book that's been out of print for decades.

The migration to electronic readers takes away a lot of that. Nothing has to go out of print when it's digital, and there goes the thrill of finding something that's hard to find. So too goes the ease of serendipity.