One of the things I notice about technological change is that it is, so to speak, quite abrupt but not completely abrupt. In historical terms, the arrival of, say, the printing press, was a huge upheaval, changing one reality to a completely different one. But on closer inspection, something like printing turns out to be a series of disruptions, including disruptions yet to come, rather than just one. And if you actually live through one of these disruptions, you typically experience it as something far more gradual and complicated than, say, a mere once-in-a-lifetime explosion.
Consider that old stager of our time, the “paperless office”, and in my personal case, its more chaotic younger sibling, the paperless home.
I have spent quite a lot of time during the last few weeks de-cluttering my home, and that has involved chucking out much paper. A particular clutch of paper that I am about to chuck out is a book. But it is not a book exactly. It is a pile of photocopied A4 pages. It is a big and cumbersome copy of a book, a copy of a copy. But it is a copy of an interesting book, one I would still like to own and consult. So, what am I replacing this biggish pile of paper with, which enables me still to read the same words? Answer: an actual book. Now that the internet enables me to buy an obscure book for coffee-and-a-sandwich money, but does not yet offer me an e-version of the same book, the logical thing to do is to buy yet more paper. In the long run, as Amazon knows better than anyone or anything else on earth, paper for reading will soon (in big historical time) be superfluous. In the meantime, Amazon circulates, hither and thither, still, a veritable mega-cyclone of … paper. For quite a few years, that was the only thing it did.
I am purchasing my new and smaller copy of this book from Oxfam, an enterprise I have no love for, and only have dealings with for private gain on my part, never purely because Oxfam itself benefits. The internet has opened up a whole new semi-business, in the form of people who can’t be doing with selling their own (often presumably inherited) piles of books on the internet, instead dumping these book onto charities, and charities then selling them for what they can get on the internet. (I sometimes suspect that the impact of Oxfam upon British society is far more profound and helpful than anything it does for places like Africa.) Again with the complication. Paper is not being chucked into a skip. It is, thanks to the internet, being rescued from the skip. Temporarily.
This is, as I say, the kind of process that does not show up in the big, broad brush history books, but it is typical of the complicated way that new technology works its complicated magic.
Another example of something similar that I recently learned of (and mentioned in passing in this earlier posting here, also about the complexity of technological change) is how the arrival of the railways caused a greatly increased demand for horses, to transport people to and from railway stations. In the long run, mechanised transport doomed the horse to becoming a mere leisure item. In the short run, it caused many more horses to be used.
I have been watching this for a long time; going paperless, electronic filine, going green, etc. Several years ago the bosses where I worked came back from a convention where “computer experts” (salesman) regaled the bosses about all the money they would save if they went with electronic filing.
In due course memos were prepared, meetings were held, consultants were hired, budgets were prepared extolling the great savings to be had for a mere $200,000 “investment.”
This was for a medium size police department. The system was purchased and installed. At a meeting of departmentg leaders the bosses explained that reports would no longer be printed. I asked how varoius forms and attachments were to be filed without reports to attach them to. Glances darted back and forth among the bosses. A command decision was made on the spot, all reports that required attachments would be printed and filed as in the past.
So, from that day forward, all reports were printed and filed.
At great savings.
At my previous employer, the more “paperless” they went, the more paper throughput there was, since there were no longer storage facilities for it so if you needed a particular document 10 times in a year, you printed it 10 times. No other choice. You can’t make margin notes on the screen, and as an RSI case I wouldn’t want to. Working on physical paper was my relief.
On the subject of obscure books. The book ‘All in the Mind’ by Ludovic Kennedy contained a reference to a book called ‘Morals Without Religion’ by Margaret Knight. This book was supplied to me at minimal cost by Amazon. The book is very old (as shown by advertisements for other books on the sleeve with prices in shillings and pence) but in as new condition. I have just checked and the book was first published in 1955 and this book is a 1960 reprint. It makes me wonder just how many other really old books Amazon have stashed away just in the unlikely event someone will order a copy.
Stonyground, unless I’m much mistaken Amazon itself does not have any old books stashed away. Their warehouse in Swansea is big, but not that big. It does not even hold all the new books they have available, just those relatively high-sellers available on Amazon Prime, I think. Taking a look at the Amazon.co.uk listing for the book you mentioned I saw that all the many copies available came from many separate sellers affiliated to Amazon who had posted this book as available on their links to Amazon.
Funny, over the years I’ve bought tons of all kinds of stuff from Amazon, including books – but I doubt I ever bought a used book from them. Most, if not all the used books I ever bought, were from Abebooks. Their network seems much larger and with much greater variety (more than once they had books that Amazon didn’t), and their prices tended to be lower.
‘all reports to be printed and filed’
oh yes, and emails too. where I work, all communication is done between branches by email. In tho case of a stock transfer, both the receiving site and the sending site must print and file a copy of the email requesting the transfer to attach to the delivery paperwork. There is also often a third copy printed and handed to the driver to take with him.
This state of affairs because although the delivery paperwork is stored securely and electronically at head office’s server, the record of someone asking for the transfer can be deleted.
however,,merely writing a letter will not do. An email must be sent and printed.
Alisa: Abebooks have been a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008. I think they recognised that someone else was doing it better than they were, so they solved the problem by buying the company in question.
I didn’t know that, Michael – thanks! It figures, I guess.
llamas is on a first-name basis with document- and cyber-security expert Frank Abagnale, he of the movie ‘Catch Me If You Can’.
Frank has been saying the same thing for 25 years – you’ll see a paperless society at about the same time that you see a paperless toilet.
(Yes, yes, I know – but it’s a concept, not a review of worldwide hygeine practices.)
When I got into the design of ATMs, and later, banking machinery, back in the days of gas light and hansom cabs, everyone told me I was nuts – everybody knew that cash and paper transactions were going the way of the dodo-bird, and in 5 years, it would all be plastic cards and electronic transfers.
And (as others have noted) it is consistently going the other way – more paper, not less, more cash, not less, and so forth. Each year sees the number of ATMs produced grow by another huge step that’s directly opposite to all ‘expert’ predictions. And the average mortage refi now produces a package of paper that looks like ayoung phone book.
I can’t explain it, but I can stay in this business and retire only when I want to. Paper transactions are here to stay for a long time yet.
llater,
llamas