“Do you know where we are?” asked Milo.

“Certainly,” he replied, “we’re right here on this very spot. Besides, being lost is never a matter of not knowing where you are; it's a matter of not knowing where you aren't – and I don’t care at all about where I’m not."

Why Reading Deserves its Own Device

A month ago I bought a Kindle, and after a week of use I brought it back with me to Oxford, leaving my iPad in New York. It was a great decision.  For the longest time I had dismissed the Kindle as silly, calling it a ’segue technology’ – a device that would just be around until the iPad or some other multi-function tablet squashed it.  Who needs another media consumption device? I was totally wrong. 

What I had forgotten – living in the tech world and spending every free moment on email, Twitter, and blogs – was that reading a book is a very special and unique experience. It’s immersive, demanding complete attention, and involves opening your mind and letting yourself be transported to a different place, or a different way of thinking. This requires a device that disappears entirely as you start to use it: it has to be light enough that you forget you’re holding it, be large enough that you can immerse yourself in a page without it being unwieldy, and be easily readable in your favorite spaces – under a tree, on a beach, or in front of a fireplace.  

It also has to be free of distractions. The iPhone is great for short-form communication, skimming tweets, checking Facebook, listening to music, and watching online video on the go, among other things. These functions all happen to co-exist very nicely in one device: you’ll read a tweet with a link takes you to a web page with an interesting video that you then want to email to a friend or broadcast.

But reading a good book – and really absorbing the knowledge or story – is a totally different experience. If you find the right book and environment, it’s truly magical. It deserves a device focused solely on making that experience incredible.

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Library 2.0: Reading in the Park

I was exploring the Brooklyn Botanic Garden two weeks ago, thinking about how nice it would be return with my Kindle for some grassy reading, when it dawned on me that we now have the opportunity to totally rethink how we use libraries, and what a ‘library’ actually is.

Libraries haven’t changed much since the Library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt - they still exist as physical spaces crammed with shelves of books that bring people together to devour knowledge. This model has worked pretty well for the past few thousand years (except perhaps for the fact that Julius Caesar accidentally burned that one down), but today, thanks to the digital world and mobile internet, knowledge has been detached from paper and can be called upon anywhere.

This paradigm shift of ‘knowledge in the cloud’ presents the opportunity for us to rethink how we use libraries, and public space in general.  I propose the following:

  1. Instead of local and federal governments spending money acquiring new books, they begin to shift libraries onto e-readers, striking a deal with publishers to grant those within the library walls unlimited access to their entire catalog of books (whether the person is on their own device or a library-owned one). Access rights could be managed through the library Wi-Fi network.
  2. Governments then use these ‘unlimited reading licenses’ purchased from publishers to spread open reading access to other public spaces as well, perhaps parks and public transportation, creating a whole new way to experience public space.

In this scheme everyone wins: governments would spend less on maintenance and incent the use of public space, publishers could entice people to buy more books by allowing them to ‘sample’ it in libraries, and everyone would have access to vastly more knowledge than any single library could ever hold.

There are massive opportunities here beyond what I’ve outlined, to retool libraries into spaces that can also accommodate other cultural experiences – perhaps facilitating the display of art and music – while at the same time keeping alive the best part of the library experience: social learning.

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Juventas Fugit  is designed and written by Justin Wohlstadter, who, when not writing in the third person, can be found in a coffee shop talking about startups, thinking about the future of education, and generally procrastinating something important.

  • Passions: startups that positively affect the world, education innovation, good design, learning, and meeting those with an equally insatiable curiosity.
  • Play: director of product design at Enterproid and partner at BOLDstart Ventures.
  • Previously: built the early-stage venture arm of Penny Black. And many other crazy, less successful ventures involving fire extinguishers, measuring philanthropic impact, and creative spaces.
  • Pedantry: most of the important stuff I taught myself or learned from friends, but I’m fortunate to have (barely received) degrees from Harvard and Oxford. At Oxford I wrote my dissertation on how internet innovation will disrupt access to higher education.
  • Procrastination: can be found on Twitter, Linkedin, AngelList and other web spaces, and be reached via email at my first name at this domain.
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