Six months ago, Amazon announced that the
Kindle outsold hardbacks on their website. Now, not only have Kindles surpassed HP7 as the most sold product,
they have outsold paperbacks, too.
This is not surprising. eBooks and eReaders are a way better business model than paper-and-glue books. It costs way less to store digital content (you don't have to rent warehouses) and it is way cheaper to deliver (no pesky shipping costs).
While I think book-selling as a form commerce is certainly
dwindling, I still stand by
my assertion that books - and more importantly, libraries - aren't going anywhere. Varying forms forms of information formats will be needed for different information wants and needs. And information professionals are still going to be needed to help people search for appropriate and effective information resources.
Although libraries are still going to be relevant, they are going to look much different in the near future. I'll let Abbey tell you why:
"...even though young people may have been exposed to computers since they learned the alphabet and may be avid users of sites like MySpace and YouTube, college-aged students are no more likely to be natural-born researchers and scholars than anyone else." -Allison J. Head (2008), Co-Director of Project Information Literacy
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