An Interruption and a Soapbox

Hello all! 

I know, I know. Before you swarm, I know: I haven’t uploaded the next chapter of The Hobby Historian’s Guide. I promise, it will be out as soon as I can muster the time to put it together. 

However, as of this morning, I have noticed something rather dire. 

That is, Google Books Advanced Search is down. All public domain texts from before the 21st century are unavailable. And, according to some help forums, this has been the case since at least March. 

I am rather upset!

Thankfully, I still have a plethora of primary source materials downloaded and printed off to work with until it (hopefully) returns.

But, I want to take a few moment to reiterate the importance of PHYSICAL BOOKS. 

Search engines can go down at any time. Devices can crash. And right now, one of the most useful tools for finding primary source materials is entirely unavailable, with no estimation for when it will return. 

Print! Your! Books! At the very least, download them and store them on a USB! Or, physically write down all of the important information from your digital books that you want and need! 

I’m all for the convenience of digital books. But you need to remember:

If it’s digital, it can be taken from you at any time without your knowledge.

Preview Image: “Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses,” 1851, by Peter F. Rothermel.