make money without doing evil

As the ship was sinking his father placed Harry’s Mother and her maid on the lifeboat, and the young man and his father, in an act of Edwardian gentlemanliness expected of the time, stayed aboard while his Mother and maid were rowed to safety.  The young man loved books, and had begun a significant collection, including a first folio of Shakespeare’s works in his collection.  He had always wanted a Gutenberg Bible, but that came later, 

Books, and more books; five floors above, and four floors below - we were taken down four flights, and along a corridor, through fire and flood proof doors - doors that could have stopped the Titanic from sinking, perhaps (?), into cold dry air.  “Books like the cold” our guide, Sarah, said.   “Here it is”, she says, triumphantly, having entered “Methodist”, “dancing”, and “drinking” in the Hollis on-line catalog and telling us about her Methodist Aunt spitting out the wine she had mistakenly drunk at a family wedding.  “This is”, she said, “a riveting read”, and nervously giggling she asked “how could such things be bad?”, the rebellious librarian emerging from a somewhat plain cover.  Too many books read, no doubt, underneath the sheets by torchlight, late at night?   Perhaps more shocking to her was the fact that Google had scanned this book, free of charge, and made it available back to the library. Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.   The slowness of the library to embrace the new media noted as a missed opportunity, perhaps?  But the book is now available on-line, for free at the moment, to everyone without entering a library.  “How could such a thing be bad?”.  The actual, physical (not virtual) book found undamaged from Google’s attack on the traditional printed word, we return back from whence we came.  

Sarah confides that the budget deficit at Harvard has brought about redundancies.  The University’s priority is for Professors and Computers, but not those that help others access the knowledge held.  She is, after 30 years, to lose her job.  Her positive approach about the future, her qualifications, experience and divorce settlement all providing a solid foundation for a brighter future, but the fear and uncertainty in her eyes cannot be hidden.  

Back in the grand entrance hall, faintly reminiscent of the grand staircase in the Titanic, a picture of Harry Elkin Widener can be seen at the top of the staircase, through a doorway, within the recreated wood paneled library.  A Gutenberg bible (one of only forty in the world) takes pride of place, in a glass case, not accessible to anyone in its physical form, except for the white gloved archivist, with Edwardian protocol, occasionally turning a page.