Today's Library, Tomorrow's Googlary

Reading has always been a pastime of mine. With computer heralding the start of the Internet age, there has been a rather obvious shift from the text and typewriters of traditional media to the bits and bytes of the digital era. With this comes the possible concern that books, and other similar forms of media may become obsolete, and be considered anachronisms in the coming future. However, just stop and think for a bit. Is it really that much of a problem?

After all, a book is still a book irregardless of whether it has been digitised or not.

In my opinion, shifting from print to digital has both pros and cons.

With the Internet, people are able to learn new things that they might never have ever dreamt of if it had not existed. The Internet connects everyone. (Who has access to it, of course.) The Internet has the ability to spread ideas (and books, which are ideas in essence), like wildfire, which is clearly apparent in the emergence of a whole new genre of marketing: viral marketing. Viral marketing relies on making a small group of people extremely interested in the product to be marketed, and for them to be interested enough to pass this information on to even more potential customers, and so on and so forth, essentially making your customers double up as advertising agents, and of course, all of this being done while incurring minimal costs, or even none at all. This is only possible with the interconnectivity that the Internet brings to us all. With the Internet, all information, not exclusively just books, may be passed on with extreme ease and convenience.

Of course, the Internet is not a perfect solution. There is just some strange, elusive, romantic aspect about having printed material in one's hands. It may not be an antique; after all, most books are far from it, but there is still something rather thrilling to be able to touch the plot of a good story, to be able to feel all of its twists and turns. Perhaps it is the smell of paper. I have seen car air fresheners of the "New Car Scent" variety; perhaps "New Book Scent" or "Library Air-con Fragrance" might catch on as well.

Ok. Back to the point.

There is something about a book that wants to makes me keep it in as pristine a condition as possible even though it is impossible; the number of dog-ears is a measure of the love a book recieves. You just can't have your book and read it.

However, this curious facet of printed material is lost during digitising. I hardly feel the same way about e-books; they just seem so dispensible; not something to be truly loved, but instead, merely for the sake of enlightenment. Perhaps this is due to the fact that ebooks are so easily generated; that many copies can be made with relative ease, that it is no longer as 'special' as printed material, which requires more effort because of things like printing and distribution. There is nothing romantic about a computer; all that is there to be admired is its efficiency and convenience.

In my opinion, it really boils down to what the reader wants. If you are a pragmatic person, perhaps e-books are for you, save the trees and all. For me, though, I would choose a good, tangible, wholesome book over an electronic one any day.