More on keeping books

I'm still thinking about hoarding books versus letting them go. I ran across this interview with Michael S. Hart, founder of the very cool Project Gutenberg, where you can find many, many free e-books. If it's no longer under copyright and a volunteer entered the text, it's on Project Gutenberg.
Here's what Hart said in an interview with Nick Tomaiuolo in the book The Web Library:

Under "ye olde" system, versus under the new system, if you've got a library of 1,000 books, you're pretty cool. A personal library of 1,000 books in a room is impressive. Now you can fit 10,000 books on a DVD, and nobody knows how cool you are because the collection looks small. ... Under the "olde" system you can look cool just by displaying the books. Under the new system you actually have to read them to look cool. It's a big difference. In "ye olde" system you are defining yourself by what you own as property; in the new way you are investing in yourself by reading, not simply in possessing the physical books.

I really liked this sentiment. It's both democratic and meritocratic. It also made me feel better about purging some of the physical copies of books I've already read.
Though I do have to mention that last week author Samantha Power came up in the news, for calling Hillary Clinton a "monster." (Power is an Obama supporter; she apologized for the comment and left the campaign.) It was pretty nice to be able to stroll over to my book shelf and pull down her book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. The book is still under copyright and not available as an e-book in the resources to which I have access.