I loved this piece from ChangeOrder on collecting, books, physical media, and ownership:
It wasn't always this way. Through most of high school and college, I was able to get by just with the library. When I was in graduate school, however, I would acquire and read 3 to 4 books a week—for work, for pleasure, for class, for my full-time job as an editor. In the mail, I would receive dozens of review copies a month. The bookshelves grew fuller and fuller, and since many books were referred to in class, I had no excuse to get rid of them. It wasn't until a hurricane blew through town and flooded our townhouse's basement—destroying about a hundred of my books—that I felt heartbroken at having to recycle all those books. Giving away or selling books, even since then, has always been a struggle.
One of the reasons I've been resistant to commit fully to ebooks is my love of a full bookshelf. A bookshelf is a window into new worlds but also a mirror, reflecting back to us glimpses of our own lives. I scan the spines on my shelf and am reminded of where I was when I read each book. The bookshelf, possibly more than anything else, is a testament to a life lived.
Cloud services are the grail of the computer industry, and yet they will not rid us of this desires, comforts, and traps of ownership. While I'm now breathing a little easier, now living in a space with a little less stuff, there's a burgeoning world of eBooks and iTV rentals and Rdio.com that continues to make me uncomfortable. My iTunes has reached a point where when I put it on shuffle, songs come up I rarely recognize. These tools are designed to provide me access to more of what I want, almost effortlessly. And yet I just don't trust myself with them.
With the endless flood of media at our disposal, it's hard to take it all in. For every finished book returned to myself, there seems to be ten more waiting to be read, but the books that shape us — the art that shapes us — demand return visits. So tonight, I want to spend some time with the books I've already read. Everything else can wait.