I am in this program, however, so you know I’m all for the digital revolution that’s taking place. I understand the role Kindle and other e-readers will play in our world moving forward, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do. I just hope we don’t lose sight of the books we know and love. The libraries we need. The bookstores we frequent. This is a part of our culture, and it would be a real shame if we lost it for good. It’s along the same lines of the problems facing the newspaper industry. There’s something special about reading the newspaper, too. But that hasn’t stopped users from flocking to the Web for free content. The difference here is that e-books won’t be free. They might be cheaper than hardback books, but I think even the publishers will begin to drop prices if e-books become a real threat. They’re going to have to.

Bottom line – change is coming. But what kind of change is still up for debate. It’s going to alter the game forever, but my hope is that it doesn’t completely eradicate the books I love. Will there be room for both mediums in the future? My fingers are crossed.

Many who know me know that I am a vocal advocate of the Amazon Kindle and electronic content. However, I did actually read books before the Kindle came along! I still have a VERY LARGE number of volumes, purchased over the years, about half of which I still haven’t read, but intend to. I agree that e-reader content is best seen and understood as extending the existing businesses, to the degree that they continue to publish physical media. It is easier and cheaper to get content distributed electronically, but precious few own e-readers or even are willing to read anything longer than an article on their computer screens, compared to the size of the literate public who have access in some way to a book.

The serendipitous activity of wandering through the stacks at a large library or used bookstore and stumbling across an item of interest is difficult to replicate online. There are recommendation engines, referrals from friends, colleagues and sites, and the bibliographies at the end of other books and articles, but figuratively stumbling onto something previously unconsidered is something that seems can best be done in the physical world. This is why I don’t fear for the fate of books. That act of potential inspiration is unrepeatable virtually.

Thanks for this article, I am very interested in this topic– I’d like to explore it in the MCDM and will be sure to include this book in my research.

Hathi Trust, A shared digital repository, http://www.hathitrust.org – this one seems to be a huge project, a cooperation between university libraries and they are digitizing both public domain as well as copyrighted books. I had never heard of them before doing the research for this review.

Some public domain books:

Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org
The Online Books Page, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/