An end of books
“Books, those bound paper documents, are part of an ecosystem, one that was perfect, and one that is dying, quickly.
“THE BOOKSTORE as we know it is doomed,…..The death of the bookstore is being caused by the migration to ebooks (it won’t take all books to become ‘e’, just enough to tip the scale) as well as the superior alternative of purchase and selection of books online.
Any single change happening in the world of “read-books” may not “kill a venerable information delivery and cultural touchstone like the book. But all of them together? “
“I called this post, “An end” as opposed to “the end.” As always, we’ll reinvent. We still need ideas, and ideas need containers. We’ve developed more and more ways for those ideas to travel and to have impact, and now it’s up to us to figure out how to build an ecosystem around them.”
Re-blogged from: Seth’s Blog.
Author: ASHOK M VAISHNAV
In July 2011, I opted to retire from my active career as a practicing management professional. In the 38 years that I pursued this career, I had opportunity to work in diverse capacities, in small-to-medium-to-large engineering companies. Whether I was setting up Greenfield projects or Brownfield projects, nurturing the new start-ups or accelerating the stabilized unit to a next phase growth, I had many more occasions to take the paths uncharted. The life then was so challenging!
One of the biggest casualty in that phase was my disregards towards my hobbies - Be with The Family, Enjoy Music form Films of 1940s to mid-1970s period, write on whatever I liked to read, pursue amateur photography and indulge in solving the chess problems.
So I commenced my Second Innings to focus on this area of my life as the primary occupation.
At the end of 12 years now, even as I have evolved a certain pattern for my blog, I need to plan to create certain definitive changes in that pattern over next year or two.
Because,
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
View all posts by ASHOK M VAISHNAV
The world is too small? or Is it? 
The Books We’ve Lost – Charles Simic @ The New York Review of Books®
“Used-book stores are disappearing in our day at an even greater rate than regular book stores. ……What made these stores, stocked with unwanted libraries of dead people, attractive to someone like me is that they were more indiscriminate and chaotic than public libraries and thus made browsing more of an adventure. …….After the demise of used-book stores and libraries, what are the chances that someone will come across a book” by “the forgotten writers” or “many serious works of philosophy, history, fiction, poetry, and all the other books collecting dust on their shelves?
I don’t like e-books. I would rather not read and always like to hold an actual book and read. .
When it comes to reading what I really like, my preference also remains print media.
But is that old-fashioned thinking?!
Being old, one cannot escape being old fashioned. Thus many of old people prefer cash payment as against credit card, read real books, cannot operate smart phone well etc.
Well, even as we try, habits die slowly!