Walk into a public library these days, and you’re as likely to see someone hunched over a computer as you are to see a reader cracking a book.

This isn’t necessary a bad thing, merely a reflection of the degree to which human knowledge has become digitized.

Some people believe that the ever-increasing digitization of our world is a giant step forward for democracy. There’s a strong case to be made for this. We hold it as self-evident that freedom of information — and its stepchild, freedom of speech — are prerequisites for a healthy and engaged citizenry.

The world has seen huge advances in scholarship when primary source materials have been made universally available. One thinks of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which for decades were kept under lock and key by a tyrannical scholar, John Strugnell, who was determined to publish the material at his own glacial pace. It was only after the logjam was broken in 1991, when bootlegged photographs of the scrolls were made public, that the field really opened up. As you can imagine, the early 90s saw a great flowering of scholarship on the Scrolls.

Nowadays, thanks to Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority, anyone, anywhere in the world with access to a computer — perhaps at the public library! — can view searchable, high-resolution images of the Scrolls. “High-resolution” may even be an understatement. The multi-spectral imaging technology used to scan the Scrolls was developed by NASA.

Which means that right now, in the comfort of your own home, sitting at your own computer, you have better tools at your disposal to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls than John Strugnell ever had.

I’m all for taking advantage of the wisdom of the hive. Great advances, especially in the sciences, have come by “crowd-sourcing” a solution, often with a cash prize as an incentive.

But there’s at least one humble pleasure that no amount of digitizing could ever replace: the thrill of holding a real pen and ink letter, written by one of your literary heroes, in your own trembling mitts.

I’ve been lucky enough to experience this thrill on a grand scale at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, where I spent several highly caffeinated afternoons with the manuscripts and diaries of my main man, Franz Kafka.

Last week, at the New York Public Library, thanks to an old friend who’s now a curator of the heavily restricted Berg Collection, I found myself sitting with some holographic (i.e., “handwritten,” in library-speak) materials by Joseph Conrad, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Vladimir Nabokov.

Unlike scans or digital photographs, these precious materials have monetary value. Huge monetary value, actually. The library takes a serious risk every time a piece comes out of the stacks. Which is why scholars are required to make a formal application before they’re granted permission to consult. This is true even if your friend happens to work there.

I did have at least a quasi-legitimate reason to consult the Conrad letters. For about ten years around the turn of the 20th century, Joseph Conrad collaborated with another titan of English literature, Ford Madox Ford, on a series of novels. The goal of the collaboration was purely mercenary — they figured they could dash off the stories without too much effort, and each hoped to trade on the other’s growing fame. The collaboration, alas, ended in a huge flameout, as projects involving titanic egos often do.

I was interested in this unusual collaboration, and it turns out that the Berg Collection is the home of a handful of letters from Conrad to Ford.

But once I’d been buzzed into the private sanctum of the Berg’s elegant reading room, there was nothing to stop my curator friend from emerging from the stacks every few minutes, like a waiter serving a tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, to quietly announce another delicious course. “Would Sir care to peruse a letter from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry David Thoreau?”

Sir cared to.

“Perhaps he’d be interested in Nabokov’s teaching copy of Kakfa’s Metamorphosis?”

Yes, he would.

“Might I direct your attention to that small Victorian writing table in the corner? The one that belonged to Charles Dickens? Mr. Dickens sat in that very chair to compose his masterworks.”

[swoon]

As a matter of fact, I did learn something from the Conrad letters — namely, to avoid collaborating with another writer if I hoped to preserve a friendship. But my time in the Berg Collection wasn’t really about the content of the letters, which may very well be digitized in the near future.

It was about holding them with these fingers; touching the fine, soft paper; giving it a furtive sniff; then painstakingly deciphering Conrad’s chicken-scratch, and knowing that a hundred years ago, in a dank country house in Kent, the great man had held it, too.