The bandwidth of a shelf is incredibly high. You can review hundreds of titles per minute. Along with the actual title and author data printed on the spine, the book’s condition gives you some hints about its age and popularity. There’s no friction if you want to pause and examine one title more deeply, and you can trivially pick up where you left off once done.
The physical arrangement of books also papers over any deficiencies in the metadata, so that you’ll probably find something relevant, even if its title and keywords don’t match your initial expectations.
It’s obviously not perfect: you need to compare books yourself, since reviews or circulation data are rarely available, especially right at the shelf. Nevertheless, I’ve never seen a web interface that was even close to as efficient as a library or bookshop.
The bandwidth of a shelf is incredibly high. You can review hundreds of titles per minute. Along with the actual title and author data printed on the spine, the book’s condition gives you some hints about its age and popularity. There’s no friction if you want to pause and examine one title more deeply, and you can trivially pick up where you left off once done.
The physical arrangement of books also papers over any deficiencies in the metadata, so that you’ll probably find something relevant, even if its title and keywords don’t match your initial expectations.
It’s obviously not perfect: you need to compare books yourself, since reviews or circulation data are rarely available, especially right at the shelf. Nevertheless, I’ve never seen a web interface that was even close to as efficient as a library or bookshop.