"We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed"
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Powell is politely skewering the modern faith that every new machine automatically upgrades the human experience. He grants the obvious: technology has made the production line sleeker, the routines faster, the copying cheaper. The nod to “streamlined ways” carries a faint edge, as if efficiency itself has become a moral virtue. Then he pivots to the quiet provocation: reproduction evolves; reading doesn’t.
The intent is less nostalgic than corrective. Powell separates the book as an object from reading as an act. Formats can mutate - print, microfilm in his era, later photocopying, digitization, ebooks - but the core transaction remains stubbornly intimate: one mind meeting another through language, at the speed of attention. By isolating “Printing” as merely “the only way of reproducing,” he demotes the industrial glamour around books and spotlights the real bottleneck: comprehension, patience, interpretation. Technology can scale distribution; it can’t outsource meaning.
Subtext: the modern world keeps confusing access with understanding. When Powell says “Reading them, however, has not changed,” he’s pushing back against the idea that innovation will rescue us from the labor of thinking. Reading is still linear in the ways that matter: you still have to sit with ambiguity, wrestle with sentences, and endure the silence where your own thoughts answer back.
Contextually, as a major librarian and bookman writing across the mid-20th century’s media revolutions, Powell is defending a human skill against a swelling industrial narrative. The line lands because it’s both reassurance and warning: the tools will keep changing; the responsibility won’t.
The intent is less nostalgic than corrective. Powell separates the book as an object from reading as an act. Formats can mutate - print, microfilm in his era, later photocopying, digitization, ebooks - but the core transaction remains stubbornly intimate: one mind meeting another through language, at the speed of attention. By isolating “Printing” as merely “the only way of reproducing,” he demotes the industrial glamour around books and spotlights the real bottleneck: comprehension, patience, interpretation. Technology can scale distribution; it can’t outsource meaning.
Subtext: the modern world keeps confusing access with understanding. When Powell says “Reading them, however, has not changed,” he’s pushing back against the idea that innovation will rescue us from the labor of thinking. Reading is still linear in the ways that matter: you still have to sit with ambiguity, wrestle with sentences, and endure the silence where your own thoughts answer back.
Contextually, as a major librarian and bookman writing across the mid-20th century’s media revolutions, Powell is defending a human skill against a swelling industrial narrative. The line lands because it’s both reassurance and warning: the tools will keep changing; the responsibility won’t.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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