' recent announcement that sales of e-books at the online megastore had overtaken sales of hardcover books came as no surprise . It had to happen sometime . But the news did conjure quite an interesting mental image : libraries that from now on will look smaller an less crowded . The habits of readers may not change . But their enviroments will . Theoretically , your space will be more spare , more serenely uncluttered . That's the theory, at experience is that stuff expands to fill the space available. But you can dream.
亚马逊网站最近宣布，这个超大网上商店的电子书销量已经超过精装书，这不奇怪。这种情况早晚都会发生。但是，这条消息确实让人们的脑海里出现一幅有趣的画面：从现在开始，图书馆会显得更小一些，也不那么拥挤了。读者的习惯也许不会改变，但他们的环境会改变。从理论上说，你的空间会更大，更整齐清爽。至少理论上如此。按照我的经验，东西会自动增加，去填取可用的空间，但你可以尽情想象。
All of this has already happened big time in the music business, where downloads have gradually but surely replaced CDs. All those CDs taking up space on the wall —gone those CDs that travel from car to kitchen to bedroom to living room ,with the CD and the case getting separated somewhere along the way —a problem no more in the digital age . From now on , we'll own what might be described as the idea of stuff, since the actual physical things —records, tapes, photographs, CDs, and now books —have been as good as vaporized , with the information contained therein stored away on hard drive.
这一切很大程度上已经出现在音乐行业，下载音乐逐渐在稳步地取代CD。所有占据墙上空间的CD都不见了。所有从汽车拿到厨房再拿到卧室再拿到起居室的CD，途中CD跟包装盒失散——这些在数字时代已不是问题。从今天开始，我们拥有的东西或许可以称作“东西的概念”，因为有形的东西，包括唱片、磁带、照片、CD，现在加上书，几乎全部蒸发，其中包含的信息都存在硬盘中。
This ,of course ,is merely collateral damage in the digital revolution, if ddamage it is . There's as yet no way to tell if this transition is good ,bad ,both ,or neither, but surely the absence of a physical library maks a fundamantal shift in the way we lived and think about things . In music ,foe example ,the rise of iTunes ,Pandora ,YouTube ,and all the other online music purveyors has quickly eroded our devotion to the long—playing albums as the principal means of organizing music . After a half century of neglect, the lowly single is back on top immediately this has repercussions for artists, maybe not so much for the people who buy their music . But who knows?
这一切当然只是数字革命的“附带损害”。如果确实称的伤是损害的话。目前还没办法确定这种转变是好是坏，还是即好又坏或不好不坏，但有形图书馆的消失标志着我们生活方式和我们的思考方式方式发生根本改变。以音乐为例：我们曾经忠实的把长时间播放的专辑作为组织音乐的主要方式，但iTunes 、潘多拉、YouTube和各种其他在线音乐的发展迅速打破这一点。被忽略了半个世纪后，卑微的单曲重新占据优势。这对艺人的影响最直接，对买他们音乐的人或许没太大关系，但谁知道呢？
With books ,the absence of packaging does nothing to contents . I can buy a hardcover copy of Moby—Dick or download it into an e-reader, and Melville is still Melville . But I grew up loving Rockwell Kent's illustrations of that novel, and later Barry Moser's 's hard to think of the book without them. I can do that ,centainly ,but some little is lost.
就书而言，没有包装对内容毫无影响。我可以买一本精装的《大白鲨》或把内容下载到电子书上，梅尔维尔还是梅尔维尔。但是，我从小到大都喜欢罗克韦尔·肯特个这部小说配的插图。难以想象这本书少了那些插图。当然，我能接受，但是还是少了些什么。
I come from a generation for whom the books and records on the shelf signaled ,in some way ,who you were . If you visited a friend , you took the first chance you had to surrepititiously scan that friend's Kindle, but is that the same ? And try that kind of snooping on a bus or in a coffee shop and you'll probably get arrested.
对我们这代人来说，架上的书和唱片在某种程度上标志着你是什么样的人。如果去拜访某一位朋友，你会抓住第一时机偷偷扫一眼朋友的书架，了解一下这个人。我猜，我也可以窥视朋友的“金读”电子书，但是这一样吗？要是在公共汽车或咖啡店这样探头探脑，你大概会被抓。
The stuff of our lives is a comfort . We look up at the shelves and we see old friends.(Yes, there are books on my shelves that aren't my friends, that I haven't finished or even started,but someday I will , I promise—my home library is a physical manifestation of ambivalence. ) There ia comfort in the continuity of seeing the same books year after year . I guess there might be some of the same pleasure in scrolling through a digital library or music playlist, but somehow I think something will be lost.
生活中的物件对我们是一种安慰。抬头看一眼书架，我们看到的是老朋友。（不错，书架上有些书不是我的朋友，我没有读完甚至压根就没读过，但有朝一日我会读——我的家庭图书馆是矛盾心理的有形体现。）年复一年看到同样的书给人以安慰。我猜，滚动数字图书馆或音乐播放表或许也会产生类似的快乐，但不知怎么的，我还是觉得少点什么。