Books constitute such an integral element
of our society - both reflecting and shaping its culture - that it is hard
to imagine life without them. But the printed book, like any other technology,
will not live forever.
(Raymond Kurzweil in january 1992 in Futurecast a monthly column
in the Library Journal)
"librarians have lied shamelessly about the extent
of paper's fragility, and they continue to lie about it. For over fifty
years they have disparaged paper's residual strength, while remaining
'blind as lovers' (as Allen Veaner, former editor of Microform Review,
once wrote) to the failings and infirmities of film."
(Nicholson Baker, The Double Fold)
Books seem well adapted for carrying small-pox, measles, scarlet fever,
trachoma, diphtheria, erysipelas, dysentry, typhoid and tuberculosis.
Yet so far as I haven been able to find, no satisfactory method vor the
disinfection of books is used anywhere in this country.
(L.B. Nice The Disinfection of Books in: Bulletin of the Medical Library
Association 1912 April; 1 (4): 61–66)
I'm currently working as a library expert in the knowledge management department of a Belgian federal agency. Because I have more than enough pages to keep up to date on different websites, I only keep a few pages on this personal website. There is a page with a brief overview of my professional life and another one with non-work stuff.