Slate has a great article on the difficult task of preserving plastic objects (from the first toothbrush to high altitude flight suits to Jeff Koons installations). Included is a great overview of the history of plastics and some simple explanations of why and how plastics degrade. And like any good article on plastics and conservation, there’s the fantastic link to my favorite line in movies, ever: The Graduate.
“Ross Dawson, a business consultant who tracks different customs, devices, and institutions on what he calls an Extinction Timeline, predicts that libraries will disappear in 2019. He’s probably right as far as the function of the library as a civic monument, or as a public repository for books, is concerned. On the other hand, in its mutating role as urban hangout, meeting place, and arbiter of information, the public library seems far from spent. This has less to do with the digital world—or the digital word—than with the age-old need for human contact.”
