Germany’s federal commissioner for culture and media, Wolfram Weimer, faced heavy criticism after he rejected expanding the German National Library in favor of digital archiving. Although he later signaled the expansion might go ahead, the debate highlighted a larger question: what place do books have in a digital world?
We live surrounded by instantly available text: podcasts, social media, comments, emails, and breaking online news. That constant flow delivers information but often erodes the capacity to engage deeply with a single thought. In contrast, a physical book resists distraction. It has weight, size, and tactility; it needs no power and its pages cannot be dismissed with a swipe.
Cultural scholar Frank Berzbach captures this in his essay “The Art of Reading,” calling books “a delight to hold, a treat for the senses … we respond to them with an aesthetic sensation.” The appeal is not only the story or argument inside but the whole object: cover, paper, smell, and the deliberate act of turning pages. Berzbach likens the experience to handling a vinyl record—removing it from its sleeve, placing it on the turntable, lowering the needle, and hearing the crackle before the music begins.
Holding a book creates space to pause and claim time. Reading a 19th-century classic can feel revolutionary in an era shaped by calculated TV plotlines and endless gaming; its language and sentence structures demand a mindful approach. The same holds for well-researched nonfiction: in hardcover form there is no algorithm to steer you, no feed to interrupt, no notification to break concentration.
The backlash to Weimer’s initial preference for digital solutions also reflects a desire to preserve meditative public spaces. Libraries offer a special silence—soft murmurs, the rustle of pages—where time seems to slow. Shared presence among readers forms a quiet community that trusts books to provide insight beyond what the internet readily offers. In that sense, libraries can feel like spiritual places.
At home, a bookshelf extends this experience. From dog-eared paperbacks to rare antiquarian volumes, the books we live with shape our thinking and identity. Unlike digital files that can vanish into folders, physical books remain visible on a shelf, available to be revisited out of curiosity, nostalgia, or simple convenience.
For Berzbach, this relationship creates a kind of belonging: “Those who live with books always have a home.”
This article was originally written in German.