Given the advantages of the humble book, it seems inconceivable that it could ever be replaced by an electronic reader. But, just as the music, film and television industries have been forced to grapple with the consequences of the internet, publishers are facing up to the digital threat. Antonia Senior says The slow death of the book may be with us.
The transition for the fiction reader will be slower, but it is a real possibility that the real-book will suffer the same fate as Little Nell. If you want to know what happened to her, she’s freely downloadable from a number of sources. Just Google her.
It IS inconceivable
It IS inconceivable, not least because of the implications of Peak Oil and a lower net energy, power-down kind of world humanity will be living in the next few centuries ahead. Print-on-paper will outlast it all, of necessity.
Most librarians seem to assume cheap energy will continue indefinitely and our library technology will forever be on an upward trend. Me? I say let’s not get rid of ALL our resources showing us how to do old-fashioned card cataloging just yet.
pardon?
“Most librarians seem to assume cheap energy will continue indefinitely … ”
I’ll venture that most librarians, like most carbon-based lifeforms, don’t regularly think about how long “cheap” energy will last.