[ Peter Vander Veld wrote:

> It is generally the binding that wears out on old books, but
> often they can be restored by a book binding service as long
> as the pages are intact.

One of my friends happens to be a professional bookbinder,
specialised in the restauration of old books.  I have spent quite
many hours in his workshop, learning the basics of his work, and
so I know: restoring old books is very time-consuming, thus quite
expensive, especially if not just the binding is worn out (which
is often the case).

Apart from that, libraries dump books because the readers do not
borrow them often enough.  Those books are in good condition -- no
library will hand out a book in bad condition.

It's true that the risk of losing information is real.  Somewhere,
in scientific libraries, some printed originals will be preserved,
but they are not easy to find, to borrow, to copy, and so on.

I guess that digitizing the more-or-less specialised books about
mechanical music and related subjects is a better solution.  In that
way the content (and that's what matters in books on technical
subjects) can be made easily accessible to many more readers.

Jan Kijlstra
The Netherlands