On Creating your Library

[River Song]

At some stage digital stuff will go down. It might be useful to store your "Noah's Ark Library" on some kind of iPad as long as you have a way to keep the thing charged up.

Of better and more useful is to invest in hard copy books and for those documents/books that you currently have online - print them out and bind them.

A word about printing out though. If and when we go Tango Uniform, we don't know how long it is going to last. If it is permanent and we go back to some form of dark ages where we have to be like monks, ensuring knowledge continues, then you might consider printing out on acid-free paper. It's damn expensive but it will last.

just an idle thought .......

[bigpaul]

paper files will last a long time-especially if you put the paper inside one of those plastic pocket thingies, if everything goes TU as RS says we will need to TEACH people how to do things and pass on the knowledge VERBALLY-that's how they did it before writing and the alphabet were invented.

[Lightspeed]

Printed books usually cost less than printing the same text on a home printer.

Home printer inks and toners are often short tem pigments with readability life measured in years. Inks used in printed books have readability life measured in decades and centuries.

It makes sense to build a library of critical knowledge in physical book form.

For emergency grab-and-go back-up, a library on Kindle or the like makes for good easily portable reference material.

[NorthernRaider]

A solid paper record is I believe essential, my own files of printed stuff from forums and blogs now fills five A4 files, and the reference books on survivalism and self reliance now number around 60 books. But I have also spent much time over the years doing "Intro" courses to various skill and crafts from stuff like first aid to willow weaving, charcoal making to water filtering, vehicle maintenance to food preservation etc. reference material is good and essential buts its application after TSTF is eased if you have done at least a few hands on courses.

[Devonian]

Printed books usually cost less than printing the same text on a home printer.

Home printer inks and toners are often short tem pigments with readability life measured in years. Inks used in printed books have readability life measured in decades and centuries.

It makes sense to build a library of critical knowledge in physical book form.

For emergency grab-and-go back-up, a library on Kindle or the like makes for good easily portable reference material.

Agreed.

Books are also far more compact than the equivalent home printed material.

But also electronic forms are great as you can use the search facility to find what you want in the document quickly and easily, and have 100's of books on a single device.

[bigpaul]

an electronic system wont be any good when it all goes TU as the power will be off too, as NR says its KNOWLEDGE which will survive all the paper files and food stores and the like. knowledge will be the key to the survival of anyone either here on this site or future generations-if there are any.

[NorthernRaider]

I was going to make a long post about after TSHTF how we must focus our greatly reduced resources on protecting the vital domestic food and fuel producers against the cities which only consume, but I reckon it would only get deleted.

[Lightspeed]

Agreed NR.
Wherever possible active , hands on application of the reference material should be undertaken.

I was using the word reference not in an academic sense, more in the sense of material that can be referred to in ordre to refresh/ remind of knowledge and skills acquired in the past.

I find that old skills that are left unused for long periods of time get lost or at the very least blunted. My library is to help me get up to speed quickly with skills that have become dormant.

Devonian: Another reason for the electronic book media is to have something easily portable in an emergency. For example forced and urgent evacuation of a BOL due to fire for example. In such a situation physical books are too bulky to move quickly.

[Devonian]

Another reason for the electronic book media is to have something easily portable in an emergency. For example forced and urgent evacuation of a BOL due to fire for example. In such a situation physical books are too bulky to move quickly.

Absolutely, you wouldn't want to be carrying around a dozen+ books in a bug out situation.

an electronic system wont be any good when it all goes TU as the power will be off too, as NR says its KNOWLEDGE which will survive all the paper files and food stores and the like. knowledge will be the key to the survival of anyone either here on this site or future generations-if there are any.

Yes that is an issue, but with solar chargers and the low energy usage of modern tanlets, this is becoming less of an issue.

The bigger risk that I see is damage to the equipment, so even if you have it on a tablet, have a USB stick backup as wellso if you device goes down, you "may" (if you are lucky) at some future time be able to find another device to upload the data to.

[TOF]

I have been accumulating a physical library for a long time. Amazon has been a boon. I have been buying second hand books for as little as £2.81. I've also found some crackers in charity shops.

I'm wondering about e-books though. Amazon Kindle books could be a problem as Kindle owners don't actually 'own' the books it's a sort of permanent lease type agreement you pay once and have it forever but it's not your book. Amazon can at any time revoke your agreement and take back their books! As such I'm wondering whether we would still actually have access to those books post TU. Something worth investigating.
So as a result of that I have never actually bought any useful books for my Kindle. I have some free ones but that's it. My Kindle is however a repository for my PDF library.