Comments on: Why books won’t die, yet.

By: ShanaC

ShanaC — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:32:41 +0000

I was born in a traditional community that really treasures books. And there are a lot of books to be treasured. In some ways, they are sacrosanct.
As I grew up, I’ve seen the changes that have happened because larger amounts of these books have been digitalized and been made available to the public. The public is more educated. There is a lot more social upheaval in the past two decades as lots of individuals become aware of what’s out there.
One press closed, a far more popular one, opened in its place. In some ways, people crave them more, and they crave the authenticity of the styles of studying that has been propagating in this culture for century. So now you see more places teaching from books, more derivatives of the traditional style of studying, which is very communal, than ever before
If anything, mass knowledge might over time lead to more imprints of certain books, not less. As crazy as that sounds…

By: Karim Kanji

Karim Kanji — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:16:51 +0000

Well, seeing that you’re a dad to be and I’m a 3+ year rookie let’s talk a bit about kids books…

There is something about a kids book that attracts kids more so than even toys. I don’t know what it is but I can tell you that Kahzmir spends more time with his books than Thomas the Tank Engine. The bright coloured pictures, the stories he’s memorized from being read to by me or his mom. The reasons are endless.

I don’t think comparing books to tapes/cd’s is fair because each one of these was a way of distributing music. The result is the same: Music which we listen to with our ears.

Reading though is different. I’ve never heard of someone needing glasses as a result of reading too many books. But we’ve all heard (maybe an urban myth) of people needing glasses because they “watch” too much TV. OK, maybe a silly example.

However, be it resolved that books will not die.

What happens in 100 years when we run out of trees or recycled paper is beyond my control….

By: Farhan Lalji

Farhan Lalji — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:22:17 +0000

Totally. I have no idea if I’m right or wrong on this. It’s just a guess. But the guess is based on the fact that I’ll be sharing books with my kids and making sure they have pleasant experiences with physical books. I’ll also probably move to reading more electronic books as well, especially with an Apple Tablet or the Kindle whatever comes to Europe first. So I think both will continue to exist.

By: Riaz Kanani

Riaz Kanani — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:28:05 +0000

Of course it could be argued that our views are tainted by experiences growing up with books.. for comparison, will books go the way of tapes or vinyll. Tapes have effectively disappeared and you dont hear many people reminiscing over their dsiappearance like you do with vinyll. My take is that like vinyll it’ll be a treasured item amongst a small niche within the next 10-15 years and that in the mainstream books will slowly disappear. Kids who enjoy books will stop having those positive experiences with physical books at a young age and will see the ebook as just the way stories etc are obtained.