I've spent the weekend listing more of the dozens of Theatre Souvenir Programmes I still have laying around. And while doing so I got to thinking, why is it antiquarian and other old out of print books and ephemera such as these are still in such demand. I mean many or most of the books are (or are becoming) available in electronic formats and reproductions are (or will be available) on the Web.

Well I believe it has to do with nostalgia and the loss of family heirlooms and memories.

In these times of massive transience - of people and the resulting ephemeral nature of those family heirlooms and memories. All (well, I can't think of any exceptions) technologies for the storage and retrieval of data invented during the past 100 or so years have been and are plagued by their ephemeral nature. Not only do the storage media deteriorate, but even those that apparently remain pristine, generally can't be used because the devices are no longer generally available, and/or themselves have deteriorated beyond use.

And let us not forget Moore's Law. That law describes a trend in the history of computing hardware, in which the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit specifically has doubled approximately every two years. Other versions say that technology in general double every six to 18 months. Basically what this means is that new digital technologies for composition and storage and retrieval are obsolete within two years and must be replaced that often. That trend has continued for more than half a century.

Writing, drawing and painting on stone tablets, paper and other materials with styli, pens, brushes and the like have been around for thousands of years. For example:
* Writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms (a written character which represents a word), but evolved to include phonetic elements by the 29th century BC. Around the 26th century BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian. Also in that period, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers, and this script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, Akkadian, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite.
* The word paper derives from the Greek term for the ancient Egyptian writing material called papyrus, which was formed from beaten strips of papyrus plants. The immediate predecessor to modern paper is believed to have originated in China in approximately the 2nd century AD, although there is some evidence for it being used before this date.
* Ancient Indians were the first to use the pen. According to ancient text the earliest of pens made in India used bird feathers , bamboo sticks etc. The old literature of Puranas , Ramayana and Mahabharta used this kind of pen roughly 5000 B.C.
* The archetypal pencil may have been the stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made from lead and used for scratching in papyrus, a form of early paper. They were used extensively by the ancient Egyptians and Romans.

And the millennia-old data from these analogue systems of composition, storage and retrieval (paper and pencil for example) can still be accessed. Even writings in long-dead languages from thousands of years ago (as long as there is a "Rosetta Stone" available by which they may be translated) can be read today.

As if to confirm what I'm saying, a customer who recently bought the book, The Overlanders: The Book of the Film from me, e-mailed me this morning saying, "Thanks, I will be pleased to have this book as my aunty is Daphne Campbell who portrayed Mary Parsons in the film, The Overlanders back in 1946.

In the past have been many such letters, for example:

The buyer of an old Radiation Cookery Book wrote, "My Mum has a 1951 copy, very well used and in tatters. She will love it. All of my family now have their own  copy of this wonderful book"

The customer who bought the theatre programme for Cole Porter's, "Gay Divorce" from me wrote, "Thanks for this. It is a belated Mothers' Day gift for my Mom. She is Olive Blakeney's daughter, who is listed in the cast list for "Gay Divorce". Thought it would be a fun idea...from a Mum - to a Mum - about HER Mum!"

This one is from a customer who bought Farmhouse Cookery - Recipes from the Country Kitchen from me, "I have received my book today, thank you for the prompt service and for enabling me to read a book that I had lost 20 years ago."

Then there's the customer who wrote, "Much thanks for the delivery of my School Friend Annual 1955. I was 11 that year and the book gives me such lovely, cosy and warm memories. It is unashamedly just for me."

And "Just wanted to let you know that The Ferryman's Boy arrived on Christmas Eve.  It was a lovely surprise, and I am delighted with the one illustration by my great aunt, Elisabeth Farmer, for whom I was named."

It's messages like those, and the many others I've received, which convince me that electronic books will never replace the real thing, not in my lifetime anyway. And it's such messages that make me so glad I can provide these treasures to those who value them most.



 

"Hi, I have this book and wonder how much it's worth..." 

By Bruce Tober

"A book full of brilliance imparts some of it even to its opponents." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, classical scholar, critic of culture wrote, "A book full of brilliance imparts some of it even to its opponents." 

And that to my mind means a great book is a controversial one in the message it sends. Some of my favourite pieces of literature are the controversial ones, the ones that send a message, whether I agree with that message or not. 

So now's the time to browse through our literature and other catalogues as shown in the column to the left. Enjoy.