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Originally Posted by eschwartz
Reference libraries -- what do you mean by that?
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Just that. People carrying 1,000+ books in their field of endeveour, so that they can do a quick check in the field, rather than when they are back in their office.
The earliest account of that phenomena that I've read about, described a Circle that took place in the early 1990s. Several atendees took their laptop, because they had the complete corpus of Gerald Gardner, Aleister Crowley, and other luminaries on the hard drive. The idea was that issues about the rites to be done would be solved on the spot, by consulting the "original" tome.
Several years ago I met a guy who had most of the Army Field Manuals on his computer, and was migrating them to his eBook reader. Study them when not on duty, and take them to his next duty station, without having to worry about weight restrictions.Want to know how to do something? There is an Army Field Manual for it.
More recently, I've seen first responders, who have what seems like thousands of books on their device. (Does anybody really need five books that describe all of the currently available schedule 1, schedule 2, and schedule 3 drugs on the market? That's what I saw on the screen of one first responder.)
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I assume likewise that people carrying around encyclopedias and factbooks are yet more exceptions.
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Whilst migrating towards being entirely cloud-based, Logos Library Systems has a big following in its specific niche, and whilst their content isn't exactly an encyclopedia, it is not, for the most part, relaxing beach reading. Assuming one has paid for the content, it usually can be downloaded onto your mobile device, assuming you have the space for it.
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All my arguments start with the assumption that we are talking about the average use-case of ereaders, which is someone wanting to read their extensive collection of novels.
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Novels are the starting point. Textbooks are the indoctrination. Those that are serious about getting ahead in their chosen field of endevour will be reading the appropriate material on their ebook readers. And carrying that material with them.
It might be uncommon today, but within a decade, that 1,000 volume quick reference library in one's ebook reader will be mandatory for the working professionals who want to be promoted.