The Ebook Revolution Will Be Downloaded

The other day, I heard that my library district is anticipating the end of printed media, the primacy of the electronic book, and the need to re-task the structures of libraries. "Library as Place" is the buzz word for this.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Books are not a terribly old innovation, regardless of what we might want to believe. Sure, writing has been around for around 5000 years in some form, and paper has been around for maybe 2000 years. Put them together, and it's like a book as we know it. However, it was not until around 1450 that the movable type printing press allowed for books that could be produced in any quantity.

(And yes, I admit to omitting any number of innovations such as papyrus, scriptoria, codices, blah and blah, but that's not my point here. Feel free to call me out on any of these, though. I'm all for it!)

So, that leaves us with around 10% of the time of written language with books, printed leaves of paper in bound volumes.

...So, what's my point? It's just that the idea of a book is still evolving, still growing into something. My choice of tense there is significant, in that it is STILL HAPPENING. The so-called "revolution" has not come and gone. We are in the thick of it right now.

As one of my heroes said, "People think the future means the end of history. Well, we haven't run out of history just yet."

Hear, hear, Captain Kirk!