A library in the palm of your hand

One of my greatest desires has been to have a huge library with all the books I could ever want. A wood paneled study, filled with bookcases, swords on the walls, and overstuffed leather reading chairs. Funny how times change. I still desire the room, but with electronic books it's hardly relevant to have bookcases stuffed with physical books (unless they are collectible).

Now, a single electronic device can hold hundreds, possibly thousands, of books. Incredible. Fantastic. A wonder to behold that in our lifetime we have such technology. Actually, science fiction stories predicted it for a long time, even Star Trek had it with their TriCorders and little readers. The funny thing now is not how much the devices can store, but how much it'll cost to purchase all the books you want. Once again, economics limits what we can do for now. Presumably this is being worked on, because the creators should be paid for their efforts and the consumer is happy to pay.

However it happens, I'm betting that we truly are heading for a time when we will have entire libraries at our fingertips. We do have a certain amount of that access already, but I'm wanting the equivalent of an entire library with thousands of current books and archival documents and so on. Research is already easy, but having access to the rest is like icing on the proverbial cake.

- M