Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Reuters yesterday reported on recent digital initiatives by Harper Collins and Random House that will allow users to search inside books from their respective websites and then consume — to various degrees — the content found within. As news goes this information is a bit old (Harper announced their initiative months ago), and in terms of functionality neither Harper or Random House are offering anything terribly different from what Amazon and Google already offer. (That being said, Random’s digital solution allows users to add material to their personal pages, which is pretty cool.) What I find more interesting is the tone in most of the articles, for example the first line of the Reuters piece: “The dusty world of book publishing has taken a step into cyberspace as Random House and HarperCollins [are] letting customers browse books online,” which only goes to show how out-of-step publishing is seen to be in terms of the Internet and digital delivery and consumption.

Reuters: Publishers allow book browsing on the Web