I don't know about you, but I see more people with PDAs on trains reading things on there instead of reading paperbacks, or newspapers. Is this the future we are looking at? Will newspapers of a morning be unobtainable anymore? Will we get our daily news via the PDA? Perhaps connected to a "Smartphone" for downloading the newspaper to the PDA? Or will "Smartphones" take over the task of the PDA? Will newsprint not be available in a few years time, also magazines at the bookstall? Will public libraries not be a place you will go to and sit down and read? Or will they be a network hub with servers all over the place for people to instantly download, not only the daily newspaper, but any textbook, manual or book, straight onto their "Smartphone" and read things on the move? The saving on paper and ink would be enormous, as would the manpower, distribution resources, bookbinding for we could all read digitally, future generations will not know what a paperback is or a newspaper, unless they get saved in museums. The race has been on for some time to preserve our modern culture in digital form, all the classic story tellers who are now in the 'public domain' are being transposed into digital ebooks so future generations will be still able to read them. So many books have been 'pulped' in the paper mill it is still unknown how many authors works have been destroyed right to the last copy. The race is on too, for the thousands of collectors of 'first editions' by popular authors, who scan every shelf at the second hand bookstore or market stall and even it seems, at the local Oxfam charity shops! The word is that the Oxfam charity in the UK took over thirteen million pounds sterling in the year 2003 just in old books donated to their stores. I find this totally incredible, but their figures don't lie. |
