The End of Paper Books

Hugh Pickens writes "Books are on their way to extinction, writes Kevin Kelly, adding that we are in a special moment when paper books are plentiful and cheap that will not last beyond the end of this century. 'It seems hard to believe now, but within a few generations, seeing an actual paper book will be as rare for most people as seeing an actual lion.' But a prudent society keeps at least one specimen of all it makes, so Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, has decided that we should keep a copy of every book that Google and Amazon scan so that somewhere in the world there was at least one physical copy to represent the millions of digital copies. That way, if anyone ever wondered if the digital book's text had become corrupted or altered, they could refer back to the physical book that was archived somewhere safe. The books are being stored in cardboard boxes, stacked five high on a pallet wrapped in plastic, stored 40,000 strong in a shipping container, inside a metal warehouse on a dead-end industrial street near the railroad tracks in Richmond California. In this nondescript and 'nothing valuable here' building, Kahle hopes to house 10 million books — about the contents of a world-class university library. 'It still amazes me that after 20 years the only publicly available back up of the internet is the privately funded Internet Archive. The only broad archive of television and radio broadcasts is the same organization,' writes Kelly. 'They are now backing up the backups of books. Someday we'll realize the precocious wisdom of it all and Brewster Kahle will be seen as a hero.'"

Comments

New Books Maybe Old Books Never

[grapeape]

A few generations until seeing a paper book is as rare as seeing a lion? Thats a bit absurd, I dont know anyone who has thrown out their book collection after getting a kindle. I have a rather extensive collection and though they mostly collect dust now I have no plans on ditching them. I can see a day where new books are no longer published but just expecting all of the old ones to just disappear is ridiculous.

Re:New Books Maybe Old Books Never

[bigstrat2003]

I would conjecture that the effect you're talking about has more to do with not really caring about books, rather than wanting them in digital format. Not that many people my age (26) or younger these days seem to desire to do extensive reading, whatever the format is. They gravitate towards other forms of entertainment, and for most their desire to learn is goal-oriented, not focused on learning for its own sake (and being well-read as part of that).

Re:New Books Maybe Old Books Never

[yarnosh]

Sure, the people who have book collections NOW won't give them away after getting a Kindle, but what about your children or grandchildren who never have a need for a physical book collection to start with? If they can get everything they want digitally, why should they ever invest in a physical book? They *might* inherit your old collection, but they woudln't need it. At some point those books are going to end up in the trash because nobody can be bothered to store them. That's how they will become rare. Also, It isn't so much that existing books will disappear as the average person won't have them. They'll have to make a point of seeking them out, much like seeing a lion. Sure you can go to a zoo and see a lion if you want to, but most people won't see them in their day to day lives. At some point, bound books are going to be things we look at in museums. Though I thnk that'll be more than a "few" generations from now.

Re:New Books Maybe Old Books Never

[RazorSharp]

But is this new? Go back 100 years. How many under-20 people had their own book collections?

If you're looking at the population as a whole, probably less. Books were quite expensive one hundred years ago and is was fashionable to write in only the most dense prose which required quite an education to understand. But if you just looked at the literate -- then I would say many more. Today, more people can read and write but far less of those people actually read books. And the standard is so low. How many 'literate' people who have H.S. diplomas can read A Tale of Two Cities and actually get through it, let alone understand it?

My grandmother didn't have an opportunity to go to college but many of my classics I inherited from her. She grew up during the Prohibition era so that's almost 100 years. It seems to me that with that generation one was either wholly ignorant or quite well educated. It took much more to simply graduate high school, but it meant more back then.

Basically, what I'm saying is that 100 years ago a child from an affluent family probably had an extensive book collection. A child from a poor family probably didn't have a single book and probably couldn't read. But children from affluent families today rarely have extensive book collections despite having the means and the education necessary. They have video games and computers. But most kids have at least one or two books laying around. Perhaps something they received as a present or some required reading for school.

There was a time when being upper-middle or upper class meant that one was educated. One couldn't get along socially or economically without it. For instance, here's a situation I'm sure some of you can relate with: You criticize a rich athlete/businessman/celebrity/politician for some decision or for saying something dumb and someone retorts with, "But they're rich." There was a time when the upper classes staunchly believed that money doesn't buy class. Today, money and class are considered one in the same.

Re:New Books Maybe Old Books Never

[mph_sd]

Or maybe you could learn something about life by reading books that never go out of date?

Read "The Old Man and the Sea" and learn how a man can persist at his work and life despite the hardships thrown at him?

Read "The Great Gatsby" to gain some perspective on how yearning after wealth for its own sake is a futile pursuit?

Read just about anything. Your definition of the word "learn" is far narrower than it ought to be.

"The man who does not read is no better off than the man who cannot read."

Re:New Books Maybe Old Books Never

[EdIII]

there's really nothing inherently better about books vs. other forms of entertainment.

I don't think it is possible to disagree with you more.

I was 9 years old when I started reading the Xanth series books by Piers Anthony. I started with the middle of series at the time. For somebody my age, the protagonist was very accessible to me. I related to him. There could never be an adaption of that book in an other form of media that could even be a shadow of that universe in my mind. Not possible.

I was 11 when I read the full edition of the Lord of the Rings after The Hobbit. It was a family copy, which meant it was not the edited crap that was mostly available in libraries throughout the 70's and 80's. My copy (now passed down to me) was published in the 50's.

It was indescribable to me what I went through reading that. The scope of that world, the "resolution" and "texture" that it took in my mind could never be replaced or compared too. The LOTR movies are "passable". By that, I really mean crap. They could not tell the fully story. Literally. They left out Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. I can understand that back story behind that, but as a child, I understood him to be literally beyond the powers of the rings themselves. That grabbed my mind and imagination. Even Gandalf, which accordingly, is one of the strongest and most powerful beings in all of Middle Earth. Also known as Olorin, of the Maiar and disciple of Nienna. Yet, he is still under the influence of the rings.

The LOTR universe cannot be translated from a book. It can only be read.

Then of course there is the ridiculous expansion throughout the Rama series with Arthur C Clarke, of which The Garden of Rama was my favorite. How could *that* be transferred to another medium?

Maybe you are right about the average person today. However, I hated English class, with a passion of a thousand Suns. I never hated the books. Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Kafka's the Metamorphosis, Jack London's the Sea Wolf. I was exposed to all of those books through English class. I had no interest in sharing with others (at the time) what I felt about it. Fuck a book report. Seriously? How am I supposed to put into words at 10 years old what the Sea Wolf was like to me?

I cannot put into words the worlds that were created in my head from the act of reading those books. They caused me to think, to feel, to cry, to look within myself. They showed me nobility, evil, heroism, sacrifice. Books helped me become the person I am today by shaping my experiences. Not Movies. Books.

My love of what books did for me and where they took me can be described no better than what my punishment was a child. I was expelled from the house, but strip searched for a book first.

There is just no way, that even the most god-like director can ever create on a screen what so many of us here on Slashdot have created in our own minds.

Inherently no differrent?

Sir you must be jesting. A comparison of the two is a farce at best. The difference between a flashlight and the Glory of the Sun. Whether it changes from verbal stories, to scrolls, to parchments, to paper, to digital 1's and 0's held within crystal structures makes no difference.

The day we lose the written word, is the day we start slipping into a Dark Age, or more likely Idiocracy realized complete.

There is only one way to go further and that is for the authors themselves to create the worlds in their minds, fully formed, and then telepathically transmit all of to us.

Movies? I don't think so.

A publisher's dream come true.

[Microlith]

Just think. With the death of paper books and the move to only digital copies (most of which will be slathered in DRM) you can eliminate the concept of resale, ensure that old editions of books become unusable, and revise history on the fly. Region lockouts, EULAs, acitvations and time limits. Then they can layer even more restrictions on top and enforce them via more bad pro-corporation, anti-citizen laws.

Sure seems like we're already on this road. All they need to do is require government licensing for access to a compiler...

Good thing...

[jra]

Since after the EMP bombs all go off, no one's eReaders are gonna be working all that well anymore.

Doesn't *anyone* read science fiction anymore?

You people just aren't *near* paranoid enough.

Yet another tech prediction...

[Bieeanda]

...like the one that said we'd have jet packs, flying cars, and Linux on the desktop in the year 2000.

Sorry, dude. Keep your prognostication within five, ten years, and you have a discussion on your hands. Stretch it out to the point where most people reading right now will be dead, and you're writing a bit of fluff that, by design, can't be refuted or argued with.

Damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

we are in a special moment when paper books are plentiful and cheap [...] but within a few generations, seeing a actual paper book will be as rare for most people as seeing an actual lion

Ah, yes, I remember when lions were cheap and plentiful and virtually everyone saw at least a dozen of them on a daily basis. If only I had stocked up on lions back when I had the chance... :-(

Archiving by Law

[MacroRodent]

In Finland, every publisher is required by law to submit a copy of every printed work published in the country (not just books, but newspapers and magazines as well) to the National Library and a few other university libraries (so the system has redundancy). This has been going on since 1829. I suppose many other countries have similar laws.

Re:Uhm...

[Osty]

1. There is a standard for ebooks that everyone can agree to. (i.e. not the epub/mobi/PDF/Custom Apps, other stuff format wars we have now).

This is mostly the case now. Every modern physical ebook reader (Nook, Kobo, Sony, etc) supports EPUB with the sole exception of Kindle. Either Amazon will eventually bow to standards, or the Kindle will ultimately become irrelevant. Format changes have happened before. Barnes & Noble successfully switch from PDB to EPUB. Amazon could do it, if they wanted to. Right now they're in a market position where they don't need to. Of course they're also very, very careful about always referring to their offering as "Kindle books" and never "ebooks". These are not intended to be generic ebooks readable on any reader. They're Kindle books, only readable on devices with Kindle software.

PDF is evil and needs to die as an ebook format. That's already happening, especially for narrative literature. The remaining hold-outs are technical books and designers stuck in a paper mindset. The former will change as the epub standard evolves. The latter will change simply with time, as the old guard retires or dies and are replaced with people who understand how to layout books digitally (if you want a corollary for this, look at the web -- it's been a very long time since professional web sites have had "Best viewed at 1024x768 in Internet Explorer" recommendations, because the old paper-based designers who wanted pixel-perfect control have retired or died, or finally evovled).

Custom apps are simply money grabs, and will die as generic readers become more widespread.

2. The DRM is gone and/or and things like resale are easily allowed with ebooks.

There's plenty of movement on this front. All of the major stores allow publishers to sell their books without DRM. The old-guard publishers are the ones requiring DRM now, and they will eventually be forced to follow the example of the music industry. It's just a matter of time at thi point.

3. ALL books are available as standard eBooks conforming to the conditions above.

This is probably the biggest hurdle. The Gutenberg project produces high-quality epubs, but they can only handle copyright-free works. So long as there are luddite authors like J.K. Rowling who refuse to make their works available in ebook format, you will never be able to hit 100% coverage. But of course like all things, time will solve this one. In a generation or less, any author will find it unthinkable not to offer ebooks. Assuming they're even able to do so if they wanted.

4. eBook readers are cheap enough that basically everyone has them.

Compared to what? But there are two ways to look at this one:

• Do you have a smartphone? You now have an ebook reader. Every major mobile OS (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, etc) has at least one ebook reader. Kindle's on every platform, for example. But what if you don't have a smartphone (despite it seeming like everybody and their dog has an iPhone or Android device these days)?
• Dedicated ebook readers can be had for well under $100. Kindles are available for $114, and Nooks for $140. While that sounds like a lot, it's really rather cheap and a one-time fee. How much would you pay for paper copies of the entire Gutenberg library? Several orders of magnitude more than $100, as a low estimate. Unfortunately ebook prices on current titles are not that good (this will have to change over time), but if you read 20 free books that on average would've been $5 for a paper book your reader's paid for itself.

5. The price of eBooks drops to represent their approximately $0 per unit production cost.

I agree, yet disagree. Ebooks still require editing, cover art, layout, marketing, etc. All you really get to save in the production area i

You guys are all missing the point

[Chuck Chunder]

A few generations until seeing a paper book is as rare as seeing a lion?

It's the massive surge in lion numbers that we should be worrying about.