Books, and more importantly, full bookshelves used to be a sign of wealth.
If you could own a personal library, then you were influential, a connector. You were the bridge between “others” and “people like you.” Personal libraries created gatekeepers of information.
However, as industrial work shifted and the digital age (paired with the connection economy) developed, personal libraries shrunk. They no longer provided the benefits they once had.
You don’t visit a friend to read in her study. Knowledge is now determined by your level of experience and leadership, not access to information. The connection economy did away with gatekeepers; now we can connect and learn from someone willing to share their secrets from around the world without having to put shoes on.
Now, personal libraries (or bookshelves in most cases) emit an air of selfishness and egoism that many attempt to rationalize in ways, such as, “I have fond memories of the book” or “Maybe I’ll read it again” or “It reminds of a significant lesson about life or work.”
Although, if so significant, do you need the book to remember it. And, pulling from the atmosphere of selfishness, must you hold onto the book and prevent another from learning and utilizing the same lesson(s) you have?
And, that drives the point of why any author writes: to create change.
Historically, yes, it was to make money, but just as musicians make the majority of their money from shows and not CDs, so does the author who speaks about the book she has written.
So what to do in an age where retaining binded-copies-of-paper-with-words-in-them’s significance has diminished? Either rent from a library or a my free little library and put it back when you’re done or once you’re finished with a book, pass it on.
There’s no grand benefit to a book collection. All you’re doing is preventing another from experiencing what the author intended for one to experience, and in the long run, for the world to be a fuller, more connected and better understood place.
Stay Positive & Bookcases Aren’t For Books Anymore
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