pamnock wrote:
"I find that many of the older and english publications focus onsomething that is so overlooked today -- the basics. One ofmy treasured handbooks is "American Angora" by Allan Gilbert publishedin 1942. The sound information in this book still holds verytrue today. It seems like everyone is looking for the "magicfix" to perfect rabbits/breeding when it's simply all in the verybasics of animal management/husbandry."
I most emphatically agree with Pam. Several of thebooks in my rabbit library are copyrighted in the 1940's and I usetheir bibliographies to search for contemporary books of the times onthe Internet. Most often it is fruitless. The lastI located, printed in 1898, was an 8 volume series costing over athousand dollars! LOL A bit out of my league, I'm afraid.
These books were printed during a time where there was no pelleteddiet, nor did most rabbit keepers have access to "rabbit-wiseveterinarians," hence there was a greater need for self-reliance thanthere may be nowadays. I enjoy reading about thatand it sharpens my own discerning eye when dealing with potentialrabbit health problems.
Forums are neat and cool, but they, by and large, deal only withspecifics and "snippets" of information, the validity of which is noteasily confirmed. Publishers, due to the expense involved inprinting a book, often took pains to insure the information wasfactual, or the author was a bona fide expert in the field hewas writing about.
Books and the printed word are often more comprehensive than what I amable to find on the Internet. They require no electricity,can be read intermittently, don't crash, and can be read and/orstudied while in bed, or in other favorite reading locationsin the household(LOL)where we don't have a computer.
Books were always friends to me and, maybe, I'm just a child of mytimes with my utmost respect and love for them. I think ourculture is beginning to suffer some of the ill affects of notreading and learning vicariously, through books, by obtaininginformation rapidly, intensely, but superficially from the media andcomputers.
Many years ago, someone converted the actual text of an one hournewscast on TV into NY Times newsprint. The actual verbiageand information transmitted to the viewer would have encompassed onlythree pages of the NY Times! Need I say more...about thedumbing of America?
P.S. The last I checked, the NY Times was being written at a7th grade reading level. Where does that leave USA Today,People Magazine, or TV, for that matter?
Buck