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.cb A PROPOSAL FOR A COMPUTERIZED LIBRARY


	For some time it has been cost-effective to put the Library
of Congress into a computer file and make all its resources available
to anyone in the country with a computer terminal.
There is no need to argue that all printed paper will be abolished, but
I would certainly get rid of ninety percent of my books and magazines
if I could access it from my terminal at home.

	A recent proposal to a Stanford University research group offered
a 1.2 gigabyte storage module for α$24,000.  If count a book as 500,000
bytes, then this module can store 2400 books.  The space occupied by
the module would store about 300 books on shelves.  The cost comes
to α$10 per book.  Recent work information compression would give
another factor of four in storage density, reducing the cost to α$2.50
per book and reducing the storage volume to one twenty-fourth of
that required to store books on shelves.

	Books cost much more these days and so does the space required
to store them, although the cost of cataloging the books is apparently
larger than either.