DIY Librarian

Walt Crawford writes about the appeal of bargain DVD “megapacks” and what makes them possible—namely, the combination of movies that are in the public domain or can be licensed cheaply, and minimal production costs. Before the advent of DVD, we had a cheap mono VCR and a few videotapes, plus a collection of MST3K taped from television. We resisted buying a DVD player for a long time, because most of the time we’d rather watch a bad movie on MST3K than any of the stuff that Hollywood puts out these days. When we finally succumbed, however, we realized that we had started developing a massive collection of DVDs. These are mainly things that were never available on VHS, like foreign movies, underappreciated movies, movies of questionable quality, and old TV series. As Walt writes:

They’re great cheap fodder for film studies, understanding the culture, and—well—making fun of the bad’uns.

CD has already done this for less mainstream music. And what about books? The (paper) format is already perfect—I expect electronic formats will make rare books and special collections more accessible, but I don’t want to do my reading for pleasure on a screen. The big bookstores don’t typically stock things that they don’t expect to sell, but libraries keep them. Amazon and other online booksellers can stock all kinds of bizarre titles, and online used booksellers have made tracking down out-of-print titles much easier.

Truly, life is getting better for those who appreciate the cultural fringes.