A lightning talk delivered at the NYC Python meetup on 2014-01-23 about defending the New York Public library and the advantages of reading on paper.

1. Why you should do most of your
reading on dead trees
&
come to the defense of a 100-year-old
information retrieval system
Matthew Zadrozny
m.zadrozny@gmail.com
@MatthewZadrozny
www.zadrozny.co

2. Why paper?
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Heavy
Takes up space
Pain to move
Expensive to store, useless when stored
Annoying to search

3. Why I went digital
• Better for nomads like me
• Better for citing & searching
• Necessary for scripting:
– natural language processing
– information retrieval
• Tried: Reading on phone, Kindle, laptop, and
tablet

4. The most important building in New York City

5. The Central Library Plan
• Remove ("gut") the stacks of the 42nd St Library
• Replace them with a lending library
• Sell off the Mid-Manhattan and the Science
Industry & Business libraries
• Cost ~$350 million (or more), including $150
million in taxes

6. Is this progress?

7. The 42nd Street Library:
The Amazon S3 & Google of its day (1911)
• Revolutionary design:
– a library combining the efficiency of a hospital with
the beauty of a palace
• State-of-the-art storage:
– for newly cheap, plentiful books
• Superb information retrieval:
– a reading room built atop seven floors of stacks made
for greater efficiency / lower latency

8. Why the Central Library Plan is a bad idea
• Not all books will be scanned
• Retrieving books from NJ and Westchester :
– increases latency (requests go from minutes to days, a huge problem for
visiting scholars)
– damages them through constant shipping
– creates a "filter bubble", biasing research towards frequently consulted
sources
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Destroys a pre-eminent research library
Destroys a marvel of engineering
Wastes money, as renovating the Mid-Manhattan Library is cheaper
Might cause structural damage (the Penn Station of 21st cent?)
Might bankrupt the NYPL system
Digital books cannot adequately replace paper

9. The (paper) book, or
why I’m reading less digital content
• A dedicated device
• with a custom form factor
• and custom user experience, which
• impedes task switching
– reducing distractions, helping focus
• offers slower and therefore usually better information:
– because the cost of paper filters out poorer, more transient information
– and because paper publication is generally subject to higher standards of
review and acceptance than digital publication
• doesn’t disrupt sleep with melatonin-reducing back-lighting
• preserves the anonymity of reading.

10. What you can do
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Follow and retweet @saveNYPL
Subscribe to emails at www.saveNYPL.org
Spread the word
Attend the protests
Volunteer: Contribute your tech talents
• Read more paper

11. Sources
• www.savenypl.org
• Michael J. Lewis. 2013-12. Philanthropic
Tyrrany at the New York Public Library
• Scott Sherman. 2013-08-28. The Hidden
History of New York City’s Central Library Plan

12. Thanks to
• NYCPython.org for the forum
• David Prager Branner for the feedback