If you know anything about the publishing industry, then you’re aware that, like the music industry half a decade ago, it’s in the midst of a major transition.  The ready availability of information on the internet, the accessibility of Google Books, and the invention of hand-held readers like Kindle and Sony E-Reader mean that over the past decade, demand for physical, published books has been on a steady decline.  People aren’t necessarily reading less – they’re just accessing books and information in new ways.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  Well, it all depends on how you look at the issue.  Let’s start with Google Books.  At first glance, it seems great – anyone in the world can have easy access to the world’s wealth of published information, from the comfort of their own homes.  However, I worry that over the long run, Google Books will serve as a deterrent for writers who would (reasonably) like to be compensated for all their energy and hard work.  Writing a book is a very long, arduous process.  It’s real labor.  And when the fruits of your labor are made available for free to the public, and you get nothing in return, well… why even bother writing?  We may lose some real gems as a result, which would be an incredible shame.

On the other hand, some of the new technology easing its way into the market makes reading more convenient than ever before.  Don’t have the time or inclination to run out to a bookstore or library?  Don’t have the physical shelf space for more books?  Just download an e-book onto your computer!  Going on a long trip and don’t want to lug 5 heavy books with you?  Just download hundreds of books onto your lightweight Kindle!  (There’s something to be said for the convenience of the Kindle – I can never travel without something to read, but I hate the added weight of books in my suitcase.)

Source: http://ocw.mit.edu

Then, of course, there’s the undeniable fact that most of us have a deep love affair with the physical experience of interacting with a published book.  The smell of it, the weight of it, the dog-eared and yellowing pages.  You can even argue that physical books may be the best technological medium for reading – they’re not locked by DRM, they don’t run out of batteries or have to be plugged in, they won’t accidentally get deleted.  While the new technology may allow me quicker and easier access to books, in the end, nothing can replace the sensation of holding an actual book in my hands.  I wonder, though, if I only feel this way because I didn’t grow up on e-readers.  Will the next generation prefer the convenience of e-books over the tactile experience of reading physical books?  Or is there something inherent about the physical book that even the greatest technological advancements cannot devalue?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject!

(As a side note, writing this blog post reminded me of an eccentric but humorous quote from Jasper Fforde’s novel, The Well of Lost Plots.  It’s interesting that even though this book was published in 2003, before Kindle made its grand entry into the market, Fforde was looking at books not as a form of media, but as piece of technology:

First there was OralTrad, upgraded ten thousand years later by the rhyming (for easier recall) OralTradPlus. For thousands of years this was the only Story Operating System and it is still in use today. The system branched in two about twenty thousand years ago… the Picto-Phonetic Storytelling Systems started with ClayTablet V2.1 and went through several competing systems (Wax-Tablet, Papyrus, VellumPlus) before merging into the award-winning SCROLL, which was upgraded eight times to V3.5 before being swept aside by the all new and clearly superior BOOK VI. Stable, easy to store and transport, compact and with a workable index, BOOK has led the way for nearly eighteen hundred years.

Cute, right?)

-Naomi