My friend and colleague Phil Shuey and I have been carrying on an email debate about the future of books. The discussion arose because of an article in New York Times about Amazon pulling back George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” from its e-books, and even bleeped it from users’ digital lockers and Kindles. The question posed was when you buy an e-book from Amazon do you own it?
I don't think it matters.
The shift we are beginning to experience is disruptive. "Disruptive" means disruptive to the current set of rules. I don't know about your part of the country, but around here budget cuts are causing branch libraries to close and main libraries to keep hours when most folks who are still employed can't access them. Book publishing business has not changed much since Gutenberg came up with movable type. They overproduce books and consign to book stores with right of return so, unless the book is a da Vinci Code or something that sells well, publishers eat the shipping and printing costs for unsold books. Electronic publishing takes away the waste of printing, shipping, and
Phil believes that electronic books are disruptive technology but doesn’t think the library is about to disappear.
I would not begin to argue that Kindle and its competitors rule the world but I do believe in a few generations the commoditized version will be hard to turn down for some tactile charm that goes with page-turning.
I still remember the heavy books in high school and college and the scam of the slightly updated college text that made the used of no value. Now Amazon has introduced its larger model and contracted with some major universities to supply textbooks on Kindle.
Amazon has started a revolution that is unpredictable as to where it will end but I believe it is a trend and not a cycle.
Education is not going to look like it did for us and there is a loss because of that. I had a wonderful time in high school, college, and law school and managed to save most of my intellect for post graduate learning (do you hear me humming Kodachrome in the background?).
I always underestimate the time it takes for a paradigm to shift and don't think this will be a fast mover but I believe it will move. I remember being in
