How the E-Book Saved Civilisation

Many of you may be familiar with the story of how the Irish monks and scribes saved civilisation from the dark ages, by way of their scrupulous record-keeping and manuscript copying. Others may remember how an astrophysicist saved civilisation in the book "Lucifer's Hammer," by carefully storing hundreds of important books in an underground cache in the hillside above his house.

The world of books and manuscripts has changed since the Dark Ages -- even since the science fiction world of Pournelle and Niven's Lucifer's Hammer. Now we have e-books, which may have an important role to play in saving civilisation all over again.

US ebook sales are headed for $1 billion in 2011. The NYTimes is to begin publishing e-book bestseller lists next year. Librarians are beginning to help clients download library ebooks onto their personal devices. E-books are beginning to go multi-media, for a more varied and potentially intense reading experience. And just in time for the 2010 holiday sales season. A number of blogs and websites have sprung up to assist readers in keeping up with ebook and ebook reader trends, including teleread and good ereader.

The dream of ebook visionaries is to be able to carry the Library of Congress inside an ebook reader the size of a Kindle. As memory and storage continue to shrink, that dream is becoming much less wacky than it once would have been. With the assistance of solar re-charging, long-lasting batteries (with ample spares) and advanced power management tools, a sophisticated survivalist may well be able to store most of the relevant knowledge and history of civilisation through even an extended coming anarchy or dark age.

Consumer Reports recently ranked the Kindle 3G as the best of the readers, although the new Sony reader is supposed to offer some features that surpass the Kindle. More on the Kindle 3G:

All-New, High-Contrast E Ink Screen – 50% better contrast
Read in Bright Sunlight – No glare
New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6" size reading area
15% Lighter – Only 8.7 ounces, weighs less than a paperback
Battery Life of One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
Double the Storage – Up to 3,500 books
Books in 60 Seconds – Download books anytime, anywhere
Free 3G Wireless – No monthly payments, no annual contracts
Built-In Wi-Fi – In addition to the 3G wireless, you can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots
20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
New WebKit-Based Browser – Free 3G web browsing (experimental) _Amazon

3500 books is not quite the US Library of Congress, of course, but if you are selective you should be able to store a fairly solid start to a new technological civilisation. And as memory and storage sizes are reduced, you will be able to store that many more thousands of additional books. Be sure to store your ebook cache in a protected environment from fire, shock, EMP, water, heat, chemicals, theft, and other environmental and human-caused damage. Store your springboards to new civilisations where the brown-shirted book burners and dieoff.org Luddites of the far left and far right will never find them.