I just had to type "doorstep City" in order to stick a link on Facebook. That sounds like the title of a poem I should write.
Though I will never prefer reading on a screen to thumbing through the care-worn pages of a book, I do love the searchability of online texts... and the ease with which I can peruse New York magazine's "Strictly Personals" from the '80s thanks to Google Books. ("Breathes There A Man—of worthy vintage who's willing to be a friend first and see where that leads?" "If you're amply shaped, let's talk." "One of New York's most eligible bachelors is tired of running and ready to be caught. Can you cure what ails me?") So the fact that I am helping digitize newspapers and novels by decoding images and typing letters makes me think I am contributing to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge even while I'm posting lolcats on my friends' pages.
Here's to you, reCAPTCHA. I'll gladly do your work for free.
(SWF seeks similarly nerdy and bibliophilic M, 18 to 23. Bad puns, writing skills, and Monty Python knowledge a plus.)
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