Are Books, Bookstores, and Libraries Gone Forever?
I live in what I want to call the modern age. I have fun tools like an iPad and a MacBook Air with no hard-drive, no CD reader and no DVD. Interesting how things have changed. Nice and lean and sweet. Gone are the ways of yesteryear, but there are plenty of other age-old institutions still around--are they headed for the same fate?
Recently I read that in January of this year Amazon reported that for the first time electronic (Kindle) books surpassed paperbacks in sales. Last summer hardbacks were blown away by electronic and the transition to new age really began.
Amazing as I speak with colleagues and talk about using my electronic books that I will hear “oh I will never give up my real books--I just like to hold them, flip the pages and just enjoy a good book”.
Nonsense. The day of printed books, just like the double edged razor, the paper sketchpad, and internet dial-up are on the way of self obliteration. Especially books and now, book stores.
Not only are books changing, but publishing also. Anybody can become an author now for sure. Used to be you could, but only if you were a celebrity who decided to write, a well know politician, or some key business leader. Otherwise none of the publishers would talk to you. No book store would seek your work and every literary agent in the country was reaping scores of consulting and handling fees for millions of wannabe writers, knowing they didn’t have a chance. The big box stores ignored anybody who wasn’t somebody.
Today the world is starting to change and in the process thousands of folks who were victims of agents capitalizing on the struggling artists just trying to get a book out are in for sweet revenge.
Want to write, print, distribute and sell your book? You can. Think you need the big box stores? Not anymore! I read a lot but haven’t even opened a hard cover book in over a year, except for one I was required to read for a class I took. Today I jump on any one of my gadgets and in seconds of searching, finding and downloading almost any book--it’s in my hands. Sweet electronic reading with cool page flipping, font-changing, comfort-making reading.
The last trip I made to a big-box bookstore I stood in line for ten minutes, waited for grandma to write a check, while we all stood there with only one teller but 13 other staff walking around doing whatever. Poorly run stores with overpriced merchandise, and slow service. As in most businesses’ you either get it right or you disappear. It’s started.
I really believe Libraries have a purpose, as they give access to some folks who do not have the means to purchase books, and certainly is a way to the future of expanding knowledge in a community free way. However the 50,000 sq. ft hall that houses the library back home is so much wasted square footage it’s embarrassing. A 10’ X 20’ room filled with computers and fast access would provide much more thought provoking, information accessing, electronic learning with only up-to-date information. It challenges us to haul off the rows of out-of-date books and utilize the space for certainly more progressive uses. Any town with a library in their capital budget needs to get a reality check.
The library as we know it can’t even begin to compete. Need to understand a pronunciation? Click a button or icon and you actually hear it. If I asked one of the librarians at my last visit to the local library (actually, now several years ago), I would have gotten a strange look or some chastisement or both. Twenty-five cents for a single copy is now gone forever as I simply cut and paste or copy the whole article.
The Dewey decimal system has finally and rightfully been disposed off as I now search by the actual word, subject, author and everything else all at once, all instant!
If you like books you’ll like it even more on an iPad, Kindle or Nook. Bent pages, trying to read in low light, small print and trying to hold open flat a 400 page paperback are now only a fleeting thought of yesteryear. Of how enjoyable reading has become!
So, if you’re going to tell me how much you just like to cuddle up in a chair by the fire with a genuine hardbound book, save the energy by tossing the relic in the fire and move to electronic books! Electronic books are without question going to obliterate the current market for printed books. Libraries have no alternative but to find innovative new uses for there purpose and as for the post office of manually compiling sorting, sending, and hand delivering letters come on... Certainly you don’t believe that slow train can possibly be a part of our future.
As for me I’m settling in with a good book, a fantastic graphic cover, back-lit electronic pages and automatic word sizer as I grow tired. Now I have to figure out what to do with all those beastly boxes of paper we called books. Happy reading.
