Every year, hundreds of thousands of books are printed. But in that same time, the average person may only read 1 or 2. Maybe up to 60 if it's a hobby. Maybe over 100 if you have no social life -- still a fraction of what's produced. And what of the hundreds of thousands published the year before? And the year before that?
Millions of titles have gone in and out of circulation since the dawn of the printing press. On that beach of paper and glue, only a handful are priviledged to remain in the Zeitgeist, and therefore, stay in print. The rest? Recycled. Decayed. Ripped into fodder for junk journal art.
Others make it into the Cicada Library. Their words are preserved for one more generation.
This digital library serves two purposes:
First, it is a fun opportunity for me to learn website development from scratch (please be patient with my attempts).
Second, but more importantly, it is a way to share these books with a larger audience who might not otherwise come across them, adding detail to their digital fingerprint, and capture why I find these discards so interesting, and at times, frustrating and horrifying -- how they remind me that our times are so very different, yet still very much the same.
Perhaps you will find them interesting too.