Eh, maybe. I returned a few years ago to the Carnegie Library in the town where I grew to maturity. It is now a law office. I loved the smell of that place, and the monuments to the Battleship Maine out front replete with relics. It was also William McKinley's hometown. Alas, time has also passed it by.

It might be possible that the technology which has made books become obsolete, may itself become obsolete faster.

I have heard this since the early 1990's. But I do not believe it. There will always be hard books. The form is just too useful.

Various categories of books are likely going to end up digital--text books, dictionaries, other sorts of reference books that are constantly updated--likely trash fiction--really, do Danielle Steel novels matter that much?

But I can think of several kinds of books that will likely never go out of print. Religious scripture, good non-fiction books, reprints of 'Classics'. Shakespeare.

The real problem isn't that books are going digital, it's that the quantity of published material (whatever the medium) is growing. And growing. Who has time for it all? What is actually worth reading? Think about that about before getting worried about preserving.

Free public libraries were useful when there was no such thing as radio or movies or TV, never mind VCRs, DVDs and the internet.

You pay attention to one thing, that means you don't pay attention to something else.

Choices. They're pesky things.

Who here actually reads 'old' books? (like in the picture). And I don't mean reprints of Livy or something like that. When is the last time anyone picked up "Quentin Durward"? or even a 19th century edition of "Leaves of Grass"?

I have an 1860's edition of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" that I peruse from time to time, and a similarly dated edition of all the volumes of Gibbon (which I got as a gift from someone special, so has extra value). A set of the 1822 American edition of Murphy's Tacitus got dumped on me, but it needs to be rebound before it can really be read. And even then, I don't know that I'll ever actually go through it, as I don't have the time or the specific interest in that bit of history anymore.

People need to ask themselves: "What do you want? What are you trying to do?"

Is this really a problem?

It is unwise to generalize about cultural artifacts using data from just one country. Here in Canada a new building for the local branch of the public library was just completed and borrowers of books are greater in number than ever before. The local Chapters bookstore just enlarged its children's and teens section so it is twice as big as before and on weekends it is packed with youngsters buying books.

Besides ease of use, printed books also provide a tactile experience that an electronic version lacks. We shouldn't forget that most people prefer embodied experiences, not merely cognitive ones, and an electronic book provides only a cognitive experience. A tactile experience is rich and thick and sticks to a person; a cognitive experience is thin and easily forgotten. If we are offered a pill with all the nutrition in it for a meal or a regular meal, we will choose the meal, even though it takes longer to consume, is cumbersome, and sometimes even messy.

Okay, I get that producing electronic books carries very little overhead, compared to a traditional book.

My biggest fear? That original manuscripts could be easily altered, to delete certain sections or change certain words to reflect totally different meanings.

And sorry . . . there's nothing like curling up with a REAL book. These Nooks/Kindles leave me stone cold!

NeeNee has the nub of it. Those that wish the memory hole to be active merely need the Fahrenheit 451 fire department to help us toward that end.

then the Kindle suits the purpose.

There's another problem with the shift to digital material, illustrated by my recent visit to the University of Texas library to do some visual arts research. The public university will grant visitors temporary access to computers, catalogues, and books, but many or even most digital resources are strictly limited to students and employees.

I was able to browse the stacks with their bound volumes, which of course the university owns outright; but the monographs and treatises offered by click-through ("electronic material") could not be accessed without a permanent university ID,* because those were the terms of the license price from the data-base vendors. Thus, much of the later and more interesting material is now limited to Official Academia.

[*In response to my questions, the librarian said that there are no special permissions, nor general "visiting scholar" accommodations. The rule is a flat one, because of underlying commercial contracts.]

I think that hardcopy books will not be completely replaced by digital versions any more than computers have utterly replaced paper documents. They are two different media, and each has its benefits. I agree with Jewel though, "Various categories of books are likely going to end up digital--text books, dictionaries, other sorts of reference books that are constantly updated--likely trash fiction." I'd consider the latter to be anything that has a limited shelf life (the vast majority of contemporary fiction).

Well, I seem to recall reading that at least one or two "forward thinking" colleges decided to close their libraries under the premise of going all digital. I imagine there must still be some residual repository for materials that have not yet been digitized. And I would not hold my breath waiting for the remaining materials to be digitized. (Heck, there are quite a number of old vinyl record albums I own that have not been re-issued in CD format. I'm still waiting.)

I tried one of those Kindles, but I wound up with ink stains on the screen when I tried to write notes in the margin. ;-)

I have some books in my library which are over a century old . I also possess a kindle.It is a sad fact that the paperbook is going the way of the vinyl record which I also have a collection of. In the area of London where I live there used to be six book shops, now that has gone down to one.Digital content is not the same as an actual artifact such as an LP,CD or book.It is much more nebulous and more easy to delete.A civilization that puts its culture into cyberspace which depends on machinery and a constant supply of electricity may find in a catastrophe that it loses everything.The survivors with no printed books would well and truly find themselves in a new dark age.

It think this depends on one one "collects". I am a linguist and historian of ancient history who loves to buy old 19th century books of Greek and Roman history when I find them, especially over "there". Doesn't mean I can't find them in new copies; it just means I like have bought them "there".

I have 19th century copies of Hittite Grammar that I treasure. That doesn't mean I won't read Brad Thor or Vince Flynn for fun if I want. The two are not the same and should not be treated as such.