Interstellar Travel - Library

What will the good people of an Interstellar Starship do for reading? Books seem like a waste of mass, although it is almost a guarantee that people will have physical books onboard. So what will be the procedure?

Right now Amazon has introduced and gotten good progress on the Kindle: Amazon's Wireless Reading Device. It allows one to download books to the reader (for a fee) and read the books on what is basically a notepad. This concept has permeated many science fiction stories, most notably in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Something similar will most likely be used aboard a starship. There is a great website discussing the issue of information storage that was written in the 90s. Even taking that information, there will be more than enough space on the computers aboard a ship to handle all the books that would be desired for reading aboard a ship. All the works of all the famous authors throughout the centuries would be available, for free, aboard ship. Well, perhaps not for free.

But then the question comes: do you bring everything aboard ship? Or are you selective in the choice of reading materials available? Are there going to be levels of access so that you can prevent some people from accessing certain information (security issues, dissident political writings, etc). Or will all information be free to everyone (and by free I mean available)?

I think that some levels of information will be restricted. Plus, some will not be available at all. There will most likely be writings that are deemed unnecessary to have - pornography and fiction come to mind as likely candidates for purging. Fiction because regardless of the intent, copywrites will possibly play a part in what information can and cannot be brought aboard the ship. Should Earthbound publishing houses relinquish use of their material "for the greater good"?

Technical writings will be far more important, along with history and politics. Copyrights would have to be secured for all information, and that is where any sort of information budget would most likely focus it's resources first.

All in all, a vital and important part of shipboard life is going to be access to written word, both entertainment and education. Current projects like Gutenberg, Wikipedia, and other groups that catalog knowledge will most likely be called upon to contribute their resources to the effort.