ARTICLE/BLOG: The Future of Books Debate

[Ryan Goble]

With Ann Arbor based Borders closing (sobs) it may seem like books are at their end. Here is an article from Wired and an interesting response from a blogger. It would make an interesting in-class debate / project to continue gathering data to make the most compelling argument.

Clive Thompson on the Future of Printed Books
By Clive Thompson - November 29, 2011 - Wired December 2011

Will the ebook kill off the print book?”

Every time I hear that question, I think about the “paperless office.” Back in the ’80s, the rise of word processors and email convinced a lot of people that paper would vanish. Why print anything when you could simply squirt documents around electronically?

We all know how that turned out. Paper use exploded; indeed, firms that adopted email used 40 percent more paper. That’s because even in a world of screens, paper offers unique ways to organize and share your thoughts, as Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper noted in The Myth of the Paperless Office. There’s also this technology truism to consider: When you make something easier to do, people do more of it. Now that every office worker has access to a computer and a printer, every office worker can design and distribute elaborate multicolor birthday flyers and spiral-bound presentations.

Read this full article HERE.

Then I came across this interesting blog response citing some research from The Economist.

A [False] New Hope for Books by Tom Tunguz

In this month’s Wired, Clive Thompson pens an article titled “A New Hope for Books.” He writes, “Back in the 80s, the rise of word processors and email convinced a lot of people that paper [in the office] would vanish…We all know how that turned out. Paper use exploded; indeed, firms that adopted email used 40% more paper.” Clive makes the case that eBooks will analogously increase the demand for paper books.

 

There are two problems with this argument. First, the data is inaccurate. The Economist profiled American paper usage and found that per capi... ”Younger workers, who have grown up with electronic communication, feel less need to print documents than their older colleagues.”

Read that full blog here.

[Regina Meeks]

This came an appropriate time. My sophomores are currently reading Fahrenheit 451.

[Ryan Goble]

Very Cool - the nicest thing is they're both short texts so that will make a nice discussion!