For the past 8 years an American artist called Brian Dettmer has been hacking up old books. His work has become known as the ‘Book Autopsies’ however he seems to prefer the term ‘Altered Books‘.
The initial reaction to the idea of someone carving up books is not necessarily positive, the destruction of books feels like shocking vandalism. However, as Webphemera, who introduced me to his work, puts it:

When the role of certain media decreases – or even deceases – Dettmer revitalizes their form to reveal their content to a new generation of ‘readers’. The idea behind the art is to take the ‘dead’ content and convey it again – albeit it in a radically changed format. A new approach to substance and form arises from the redundancy of the original article. So the phoenix rises from the ashes as, perhaps, another beast altogether.

While I’m a lover of books – no kindle for me thank you, I like the feel of a brand new paperback in my hands – and hope that they are not a dead or dying medium, I have to admit that I rarely walk past the computer to the bookshelf when needing to look something up. So the idea that these old fashioned purveyors of knowledge are being given a new lease of life rather than fading into obscurity in a dusty back room somewhere is reassuring. The old medias don’t need to die or become obsolete – they can adapt, or be adapted, to find new relevance.

'New Books of Knowledge'- Altered Set of Encyclopedias, Brian Dettmer 2009