After Books, What?

The population explosion has evoked public interest and concern on the part of demographers. Consideration has been given to a variety of measures designed to curb the growth of population. The book explosion, also menacing, does not seem to have evoked analogous anxiety, and bibliographers, in contrast to demographers, prefer to adapt to the multiplication of books rather than to try to curb it. The intent of this paper is to explore the bibliographic analogies to several of the more popular devices designed to curb population increase. It is concluded that an effective restraint upon the writing and publishing of ever increasing numbers of books has yet to be discovered.