Out of the box – Joining the dots

Our golden age of information has a flaw. Classic books are receiving due attention and the popular books look after themselves. The flaw is with the books in the middle – out of print, out of sight and out of use. My professional work requires access to this middle ground, usually technical works, typically 20 years old and currently being discarded by the major libraries under cost and space pressure. The books themselves are available on Amazon at a knock-down price but handling, search and storage is inconvenient. Recent products, such as the Android-based tablet computers (for example Amazon Fire), deliver a convenient platform to use and exploit these texts and the consumer based technology companies (such as Google, Apple and Amazon) have the capability to deliver this content conveniently and profitably for all concerned. In a tribute to Steve Jobs this article suggests joining up the dots with a technology inspired, volunteer-fuelled and commercially managed capability. It has happened with music so why not books?