As much as I love the internet for all things historical, such as Jstor, Google Books and most sites ending with .edu. There are a couple of reasons I like to have books, (perhaps not for the most conventional reasons). In some cases I couldn't help but give a reason as to why the Internet is better..
1. First of all, I do love the way you can flick through a book so freely. (However, my love for flicking through books has been overtaken by my love for the use of "CTRL + F" and the search box in Google Books).
2. My bookshelf is 90% made up of history books (intelligent, huh?) perhaps not.. (even though I have a lot of history books I have probably only read a few pages from each book. It would
appear I am spending money to just read a few key pages of a book).
3. Buying a book makes me feel like I'm doing revision.. Suffering from writer's block on your dissertation? head on over to Amazon, buy a relevant book and put off the work for 3 to 5 days whilst you wait for the book to be delivered.
4. Having books can make you feel intelligent. Books can be displayed at crucial times in front of people you want to try to impress. "Oh.. that? That's just my copy of War and Peace?. For when I want some light reading"
To be honest though, I feel like history on the internet has contributed more to my (limited) knowledge than books has ever done. The internet is at my fingertips. If I hear something that I find vaguely interesting, the first thing I tend to do is grab my laptop to Google it, not go out and find a book that contains the relevant information.
photo: http://heavenleecolton.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/books-vs-internet/
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