The Future of Books?

"So I dub thee unforgiven..."-Metallica, Unforgiven

Alright, so I had an original blog post planned for today, but my sister sent me a link that I couldn't resist passing on to others. The NY Times online has a great article about the future of books. It focuses specifically on the agreement between Google, publishers, and the Author's Guild regarding Google's digitization and searchable index of every title it can get its hands on.

It's a short read, a very interesting perspective, and a source of optimism in the face of what seems like a fairly pessimistic situation. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the article's author, however. Personally, I can imagine my hypothetical kids bringing a Kindle on vacation with them instead of two or three books. On the other hand while children's books may become a tough sell, I can also imagine reading paper books becoming a sign of maturity--like drinking wine. The market may change, and will probably shrink, but I doubt it will ever disappear entirely.

And besides---even if publishing moves completely to e-books, someone still has to vet and market the untold billions of e-books out there, someone has to negotiate the contracts, and someone has to produce the e-books themselves. There will always be a publishing industry, and if it looks different 20 years from now, well, what industry won't? And what industry looked the same 20 years ago? That's just life.