In the year 1000 A. D., the Grand Vizier of Persia had to make a long journey. He was an avid reader and the idea of even temporarily being away from his library of 117,000 books was too much to bear.
So he had his books loaded on 400 camels and had the animals trained to stay in alphabetical order in the caravan.

"The good thing about digital media is that you can save everything. The bad thing about digital media is that you can lose everything."
- Brewster Kahle, Web pioneer, founder of The Internet Archive

There is no argument that the printed book has an aesthetic and practicality. However to have a digital version of a book for fast reference and ‘copy-paste’ quotability is very convenient. It allows for fast and often more accurate dissemination of information. There is also the portability factor, the Grand Vizier would agree.

There is also the increasing popularity of electronic books, e-book readers and cell phone based text delivery systems.

Many out of print books exist that  would be interesting to have access to in digital form (many of A.S.Neils’ earlier works are
difficult to find, yet are as valuable reference now as they were 50 years ago). A remit of ABC would be to source such material and produce a digitalized version.

An important aspect of Agora Book Club is to promote authors, both new and established’, who are contributing to, the alternatives in education, publications

It has been shown that a digital version of a book will enhance the ‘hard copy’ sales. Authors will receive a ‘royalty’ from ABC for books downloaded.