I've assiduously tried to acquire as many books as possible over the past 5 years. My personal library bulges with loved books from my childhood, books further exploring trajectories I began years ago when they gripped and all sorts that I have developed an interest in over time by exposure to others. My working theory in some of this acquisition is that it will aid in developing a love for books in the next generation. I certainly benefitted from books being readily accessible in my father's library. I am still under the thrall of books that I developed years ago (I am a ludic reader). However I can see this trend for actual physical books ending soon: with the advent of the Kindle and the iphone; and with Moore's law ever lurking in the background, books are going to definitely go on a portable device which will let you buy and read books on the go. Note that this is advantageous all around: more efficient publishing (no ink and paper), more books sold (more accessible social networking, aiding seamless book recommendation, mated with impulse buying over an always on network…) and a deeper ability for random access to knowledge. Device bound content is also a bit less susceptible to piracy than PC bound content – which the industry will love. About the only thing that will suffer will be attention spans and the ability of people to get into physical conversations – but even that will evolve in our brave new world; I suspect that people are much more adaptable to this than most commentators think.
Overall I expect to stop buying physical books by 2010. I hope the Kindle category takes off. I hope someone figures out how to not to put draconian drm on these products.
Chez Udezue's current book loot.