My attitude to books - books as material objects rather bizarre way.
First I bought knigi.Eto were "just good" books that I was not going to immediately read - many of them have remained unread, and now they are sending off the shelves at me fleeting rays of guilt every time you look at them down. It seemed to me that I "collect personal library." Also, I could not imagine even the possibility to sell or throw away the book that I did not like, or that I just will not re-read, the very thought of it seemed impossible.
I gradually realized that my attitude towards books has changed dramatically. By the time I got used to the idea of the network as the main source of information, though usually much more convenient than going to the library, or even in the next room to the bookcase. Number of books available in the network, increased daily, not only in Russian but also in English (though not in the public domain such as in the Russian network.) I used to read long texts and entire books on the screen - no, this is not quite true - I used it often worked, but I no longer consider it the worst, second best way to read in comparison with the real book in your hand. Moreover, over time, I began to feel some irritation at the thought of all the books that I have is a sense that they have all their mass as it is pressed against the ground. Anyway, I thought, I do not actually complete the library that would be all that would have interested me, at least from the classical and well-known authors, not to mention the updates - and never will be, because this will take ten times more space, and I was already burdened with the existing cabinets. As I saw a vague ideal of a fully digital library that exists in one place on your hard drive (not including backup). Yes, text files, may not be as easy to read as a book, and not so easy to make notes in the margins (but I'm in the books they never do, however). But how well, I thought the book to be a file, rather than gathering dust bar of dead wood on the shelf! The file can be in one second to find what are looking for. File, you can instantly share with anyone and reproduce in any number of copies. I've never had much respect for the physical embodiment of the book, I always felt that it is infinitely more important than the content. But the file - this is the focus of the content in one place, free from the tyranny of the three-dimensional material.
If the book was available online, I will download it, and did not buy the paper version.
Finally, again, slowly and almost imperceptibly to myself, there was another shift in my attitude to books. First, I do not know why, was trying to print large texts or books, not to read from the screen (I do not know why, I have not deteriorated vision, reading from the screen was unpleasant for me, I discovered reading prints it to me in the past was well known - but somehow elusive way, it began to seem to me more appropriate and enjoyable). In a strange way, I went back to the long-standing preference for the book-as-object-as-book file, but with significant changes. I do not care anymore that I do not have specific books that I have read and consider important: I'm not going to buy it just to improve and add to a "library" - and generally buy only what is immediately going to read (even though not always possible for various reasons.) Disappeared with a rich sense of the letter, from which, once entered it, the books do not disappear. Overall, I like this my new attitude to the books, though somewhat alarming is that all these changes happened as described above would be out of my will, not by conscious choice, but the source of our preferences and decisions - a topic for another discussion.