Cool new ebook (4 min TED talk, April 2011).
My commentary:
I think that our idea of 'book' will evolve or go away. I'm sure everyone was loving clay tablets and scrolls and all, but when new technology brings such innovation, people adapt to it. A scroll just isn't convenient for how we consume information today.
In a certain amount of time, paper printed books will fall away as well. I grew up reading on paper. Now, it probably accounts for less than 20% of what I read. People with digital access are reading more today than ever. When my kids are adults, it will be a lower percentage for them. I won't bemoan it (as long as they still go outside and throw a football around.)
A previous comment touched on the community of people "invested in a book" with a tinge of worry. This may be callous, but they must evolve. Are we crying for the clay tablet community or the papyrus scroll community? How about those folks who ran the printing presses setting each character by hand?
Textbooks are terrible amalgamations of information. They don't inspire. If the wonder-tablets can put in students' hands the words of the actors of history and science and mathematics, and the ideas of great thinkers so that the students can make connections and do what they're supposed to be doing (THINK), then great.
The device is just a thing, an access point (a new kind of tool). The work of students is not in it (necessarily); it's with each other in dialogue and thought. I'm more concerned with how much time they spend with it VERSUS time in conversation and outside in the forest.
Libraries: I love them. But they'll evolve. In my experience they've been quite good at that (think microfiche), so I'm not worried. Librarians are some of the most resourceful people I've known. I don't picture them clinging to shelves of books that no one checks out and screaming, "DIGITAL BOOKS AREN'T BOOKS! (think Soylent Green). Libraries will be public spaces for learning together in communities, agoras of knowledge and wisdom.
Go 'books'!
All that said, the notion of a collection of information that a single individual keeps just for himself might also evolve. Since that's all a printed book is, once you start keeping it digitally, the publisher can update it at will. So that's basically a website, right? So really, what's going to happen?
Everything in clouds and you just need an access point? Perhaps notions of ownership will also change. Do I need to 'own' a copy of Crime and Punishment? No, I just need a way to access it. So companies would stop sending out the bits for the text and just house it once in the cloud. What might be worth storing locally on your device would be your notes on it. But probably, as with the Kindle book loaning now, the companies could just keep those bits as well (they'd be quite nominal).
So what's coming? No more books. They become like websites. But websites evolve to be more dynamic, more useful, and commerce adjusts accordingly (hey, you didn't think you were just going to get access to all that for nothing, right? What is this, Star Trek?).
What's your theory on the future of the 'book'?
