Bookstores [Was: Re: Going OT [Was: Re: Replacing PBXes with Open Source]]

Fred puissante at lrc.puissante.com
Mon Aug 30 09:07:01 EDT 2004


On Sun, 2004-08-29 at 23:21, bscott at ntisys.com wrote:
>   As a counter-point...
...
>   We are witnessing the beginning of the end of an era.  Printed media is
> becoming obsolete.  It will like tens, if not hundreds, of years to finish
> doing so, but the wheel has begun to turn.  How appropriate that Gutenberg
> bracket both the beginning[1] and the end[2].
> 
> [1] http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html
> [2] http://www.gutenberg.net/

While there will of course be a surge of use for e-books and many books
in the future may only be available in electronic form, I don't see the
old 'dead tree' books going away completely ever. There is something
about holding a physical book in your hand, curling up under a shady
tree to read it, proudly displaying your book collections on shelves in
you library, etc. I like scanning the shelves of my library for books
that might spark an answer to a question, or a new idea, or just plain
old curiosity. 

Mind you, e-books do have the wonderful advantage that they will never
"go out of print" -- they can always be available, and anyone will be
able to "publish", though we may need a review process to weed out all
the crud!

I see a place for both. Just as we still have dead-tree newspapers
despite televised news and online news sites, dead-tree books will
always be with us despite all the newer ways to publish.

-- 
Fred -- fred at lrc.puissante.com -- place "[hey]" in your subject.
There are inflows and outflows -- and you're just a little node.





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