Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

There’s a story in the LA Times about the sad plight of California independent bookstores; most of them are going out of business in the face in increasing competition from web-based retailers (namely: Amazon) and general decreasing interest in terms of consumers (namely: kids). This resonates in terms of the “print is dead” debate, which is one wherein print’s most vocal adherents rhapsodize about the beauty of books themselves and yet never talk much about actually reading; their notion is almost always romantic, never practical. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, has a great quote in the LA Times article which reflects this: “A lot of our affection for bookstores is based on a romanticized notion. The fact that we’re not patronizing them speaks more loudly than our words.” I think that’s a great point; everybody loves the idea of bookstores, but fewer and fewer people actually spend their money in them.

From the story: “Technology changes behavior, which reshapes the physical landscape. The era of repertory movie houses playing ‘Casablanca’ and ‘High Noon’ ended with the VCR. The telephone booth was replaced by the beeper, which was made obsolete by the cellphone. And the newspaper is under siege by the Internet’s ability to recombine and distribute news without leaving ink on your hands. ‘The bookstore as we know it is in dire straits,’ said Lewis Buzbee, a novelist who spent many years working in the local shops.”

LA Time: Bookshops’ latest sad plot twist