Keep physical media

My husband and I are both media hoarders.

Ten years ago I would’ve said this with a slight air of embarrassment, wondering if my taste for DVDs and books and CDs is a bit excessive. Today I say it with an implied “you’re welcome.” Because the way things are going, it’s people like us that are going to preserve culture for future generations (and for the current generation, when they for one reason or another lose access to their music subscriptions and streaming services).

I have a goal of collecting 1000 books for our bookshelves at home. This became a dream of mine a few years ago when I learned that 1000 is the minimum required amount for an official library. Hopefully we’ll get there within the next few years, but that will not be the end of it as long as there are still more good books waiting to join the collection. My home library goal is very intentional—because beyond the pure dragonlike desire to be surrounded by endlessly multiplying stacks of books, I’m cultivating a treasure trove of words for my family. For anyone, really, who might come into my home in need of something good to read.

A robust home library is essential to my vision for this digitally muddled future we’re entering, and within the last few weeks I’ve resolved to intentionally include movies, music, and video games in that vision.

Not that we haven’t been collecting those other things for years too—I labeled us media hoarders and I wasn’t kidding—but up till now it’s been with a more relaxed attitude, more an accessory pursuit than an intentional goal. Now it’s something I come at much more purposefully, with organized binders and to-buy lists and yes, even a regular budget.

I heard someone describe media collectors as “curators” and that feels appropriate for these times. Who knows, maybe we really are the last generation that will buy movies on DVD. In some ways that seems like an inevitable change, but what happens when media becomes available only through digital streaming? Video game companies are already starting to leave discs behind, instead selling the key to access remotely stored content—which can be revoked anytime. At this point, even owning something doesn’t really mean it’s yours.

For a long time I’ve fostered a distaste for digital media, especially books, that felt kind of unquantifiable before now. I’m not against digital media on principle, but I will die on the hill that it can’t replace physical media, and anyone who tries to convince me that a Kindle is the same (or better) than a real-life bookshelf is a psychopath.

Some might say it’s consumerist or materialistic to collect physical media. I’ve noticed a lot of people around me GETTING RID OF PERFECTLY GOOD BOOKS because books are too much CLUTTER. What?

Good books are not clutter, they add richness to life. Keeping books (or movies, or records, or CDs) you love doesn’t make you a slave to the capitalist machine, it helps you hold on to what makes us human (to the extent that you aren’t just adding to a pile indiscriminately).

Am I a materialist because I’m not satisfied to rent a favorite movie, or because I want to feel a book in my hands and let my shelves bear the weight of its presence? Maybe the hoarder dragon in me just likes to accumulate stuff. But really I think the heart of it is that I want to hold on to the things I love, that have shaped me. And that doesn’t feel materialistic.

I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t revisit the stories that are most important to me without paying a subscription fee, or worse, where I lose access to those stories forever because they’re removed from the cloud. That might seem kind of dramatic, but I think about the impact media has had on me, the power that stories and songs have in our lives, and it feels like almost the most important thing in the world. Like Kathleen Kelly says in You’ve Got Mail, the heritage of stories we love helps us become whoever we’re going to be in life, and that’s a treasure worth preserving.