Germaine Greer:SITE SEEING
I’m not impressed with the general availability of books online. I’m glad a United Kingdom edition of Amazon’s online bookshop was launched because it was infuriating not being able to buy books from UK distributors on the United States site.
But I find this site slow. Virtually all its titles are available on the high street. I would be more interested in accessing rare works over the Net.
It should be a fantastic research tool for literature, but its potential hasn’t been fulfilled.
I’d love to be able to scan manuscripts online so I don’t have to pay Harvard to view them. But I can’t.
Nor can I put my tutorials on the Net for students because of the mess the intellectual property laws are in. Online bibliographic studies are hopeless.
Recently I did a search for women’s letters and I was inundated by letters from women in the Philippines and Thailand, featuring tarty photos, advertising for computer nerd husbands to rescue them from their misery. It was a real eye-opener.
I have to be in favour of the Internet because I’m in favour of the free exchange of information, but 95% of what is on it is wrong, 3% is criminal and the other 2% is useful, if you can find it.
is the website of an online bookshop
ENDS