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    According to an article in Forbes magazine published on August 17, 2026 there is a big move afoot by big tech companies. The Forbes magazine article claims that big tech companies are buying up rare books currently and by the hundreds. They reportedly take the purchased rare books to a warehouse, cut the spines off the books, then run the pages through a document feeder and scanner. That gives them an electronic copy of the book. That in itself is disturbing because the purchased books are allegedly being destroyed and shredded. That gives the big tech companies exclusive access to that rare or irreplaceable information. There is then the very real possibility that these tech companies could take that electronic copy and edit it to say what they want a book to say or what some people want it to say. That’s an extra level of evil and I find quite despicable. I’m reminded of all the local newspapers scattered across Canada and almost all of them have archives and that includes the Rivers Banner,       The Neepawa Banner & Press and the Virden Empire- Advance.   These three papers are owned by the Waddell family. Tucked away in a safe room, hopefully community papers have access to those archives. This illustrates a point that I’ve been making for a few years now about the importance of print. I’ve always maintained that print is the most dependable medium. Audio can be modified, video certainly can be modified, on-line presentations can certainly be modified.  That said, I’ve maintained that print copies that are saved and archived are permanent and that is true to a point but if print documents can be scanned converted to an electronic format they can also be changed so people who want to ignore history can simply re-write it by changing a document electronically. For example, if a document like a local newspaper were to get into the hands of these big tech changers it’s quite possible the history of a community could be re-written unless of course it has been kept somewhere else in a print form. It’s easy to understand why the tech companies would want to do this. By his process, they would have exclusive access to be the only channel of access to history, to literature and to any facts that pertain to a particular community or event. I doubt that anybody will be able to pass laws strong enough to overcome the processing drive and energy of big tech companies. They do already in many ways control every aspect of our lives. When they have access to media, access to local government, provincial or federal governments we will be  totally dependent on big tech to provide us with their “version” of history or programs or facts. They used to say, “Get it in writing”. It may be more to the point in the future to say, “Keep it in writing? and I don’t mean a chopped up, re-configured version that’s according to ‘Big Tech’s’ will and profit. Books, newspaper records and documents belong in archives and libraries, not a shredder bin at a recycling centre.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the staff.