The People of the (Digitized) Book
Ynet has an article (Hebrew) about digitized collections of Hebrew books, e.g. Otzar ha-Ḥochma, Hebrew Books, Bar-Ilan, etc. The article addresses how this might affect the culture of the book in traditional Jewish learning and issues which may arise regarding reading digital books on Shabbat. My teacher SW thought about this issue over a decade ago and suggested that maybe this is another area where our conceptual understanding of what constitutes melachah, prohibited activity, on Shabbat, must change.
Other news on the digital front is more info from the Talmud Blog about the digitization of Hebrew journals, a welcome step. Lastly, Lion of Zion links to a post about problems encountered with the disposal of sheimot, broadly defined to be something which contains the name of God or certain religious objects that requires special disposal. Despite Lion of Zion’s aversion for throwing printed matter out, something which I sympathize with, there are times when certain things have got to go. One suggestion that wasn’t offered was trying to maximize the amount of things that can be recycled, something which I wrote about here.