An interesting discussion of paper and its merits from Malcom Gladwell, the author of The Tipping Point. My friend Greg pointed me to this article, which appeared in the New Yorker, because he knows that I favor scanning of documents and keeping information in digital form. But don't get me wrong. I like paper and I'm not saying that every piece of paper should be digitized. Still, I maintain that the transactional cost of dealing with paper (especially in the legal profession) is unecessarily high. But it's hard to wean ourselves from that which is familiar even if, rationally, we know that it is holding us back. Maybe the Web will accelerate the process of getting us to accept information in digital form. [Ernie the Attorney]

Collector Assembles a Rare Quartet of Bibles. For the first time in more than 150 years, copies of the first four printed editions of the Bible have come under the ownership of a single person. By Dinitia Smith. [New York Times: Arts]

Britons Chafe at Giving Americans a Shot at the Booker Prize. The brouhaha that erupted over the possibility that Britain's prestigious Booker Prize might be opened to American writers by 2004 revealed just how foolish the literary establishment can be. By Michiko Kakutani. [New York Times: Arts]

Charles Ede, Who Made Fine Books More Affordable, Dies at 80. Charles Ede, who responded to the dreary appearance of books in austere postwar Britain by starting the Folio Society to create beautiful editions at affordable prices, died on May 29. By Douglas Martin. [New York Times: Arts]