There is an article in Aftenposten today, where concern is expressed over the sinking interest in the old classics of Norwegian litterature. Interestingly, it is a publisher who has observed sinking sales, and it makes me wonder if they ever consider the steadily growing number of books that are already out there, but no longer actively engaged in the commercial machinery. It doesn’t necessarily mean that people don’t read them!? Surely, countless books circulate between friends’ or relatives’ bookshelves, flee markets and antique shops.. Sales numbers can show a lot of things, but it depends what you’re looking for..
It reminds me of a critique of the Norsk Monitor poll that came out a couple of months ago, and which claims that Norwegians have changed from materialistic to more concerned with soft, social values. There is a great leap, as the author of the article argues, between attitude and action, and considering the mass media, people are very aware of what they should answer, not necessarily representative of what they actually do. This report, Norsk Monitor, sells at NOK 300.000 a copy, by the way.
So what is the relevance: We heavily rely on the numbers of commerce, and tend to forget that the market will hit a point of saturation and that reuse and sharing is good.
