A hypothetical bookshelf manifesto

From Open Letters Monthly magazine, In Defense of the Memory Theater by Nathaniel Schneider.

I think these are pretty good criteria for what we seek from books - whether traditional or e-books.

One could phrase the basic demands of a hypothetical bookshelf manifesto like this: for-life, liberatedness, and the pursuit of eclecticism. They're all related. "For-life" means the right to keep one's books as long as one lives and, just as importantly, to pass them on to one's descendants. They must not be take-away-able by the fiat of a far-away corporation. They must be in a medium and format that will be readable in a hundred years and, if we know what's good for us, in five thousand. "Liberatedness" means that the texts are truly ours to do with as we please, short of harming others. We can lend them to enemies and friends. We can mark them up or damage them. We can move them around wherever we like, and wherever the technology allows, freely organizing and categorizing them to all the limits of our private compulsions. Finally, "the pursuit of eclecticism" means that there should be no limit on the breadth of our collections. Plainly, no censorship. These are all things that my shelf of paper and cardboard do quite well and that the most celebrated digital alternatives, so far, do not.