amazing resources are available to us now, for just a short hike to our local libraries, yet how many of us take advantage of that.
When I lived in AK, I walked to the other side of the post almost every weekend to spend the money I had earned from babysitting on chess books and model tanks, but always on the way home I'd stop at the library a few hours. It was a cathartic ritual for me, though I don't recall ever having seen a single person my age in the place - or much of anyone else. No matter the age, people prefer to do what is easy and popular. Reading, studying, experimenting take some mental effort that most people are not prepared to commit in their free time.
I pessimistically guess that many of the people now coming to computers are not necessarily going to dive into all the knowledge areas of the net.
I'm sure that will prove true. But I'm also sure that the easier it becomes for people to get a smidgen of knowledge, the more likely it will be that they will search for and make use of that knowledge. People are morely likely to do what is easy and what has immediate payoff.
It's not a cornucopia. But it could very well have unexpected beneficial consequences.
Probably few people on the net today use Gutenburg, but I think the net is a better place for the existence of such a site.
Currently my employer pays for me to have an electronic bookshelf at O'Reilly as well as access for all employees to a much larger selection (20K volumes) in the other sciences from another site - and hundreds of journals. This is great for me and my colleagues. But I've always thought it would be even better when more stuff is available to a wider audience - for free.
k
