Do People Still Read Books or Newspapers?

In the Saturday March 6, 2011 Toronto Star there was a reprint of an article written by James Travers (1948-2011) entitled An Eloquent Plea for Democracy. If by chance you missed it I suggest you go to http://www.torontostar.com/ and type the heading in the search box. It should be a must for anyone interested in the future of Canada.

There is no doubt that a mobile revolution is taking place and as a result there are those who question the future of the printed word - books and newspapers especially. More and more readers are trying electronic reading devices like Amazon.com's Kindle or Chapters' Kobo. Yet at the same time we see the popularity of Steig Larsson's trilogy about the young computer genius Lisbeth Salander or Ken Follett's World Without End that has already sold over 80 thousand copies! I know a number of people who belong to more than one 'book club' and they meet on a regular basis. An i-Say Panel of 18,273 participants indicated that 79% of them said they had read a novel/book in the past year.

Nevertheless, the next chapter about books and newspapers is still to be written. Many independent book stores are going out of business. Even large distributors like Borders are struggling to stay alive. The industry is in the middle of change.

In Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams' book Macrowikinomics - Rebooting Business and the World, they point out that investigative journalism is critical to the health of a democracy and has been the foundation of free speech and social critique. Investigative journalism was like a search light  used to keep all our leaders honest. But that kind of journalism is very expensive and is disappearing as the list of subscribers and advertisers shrinks. Recently we saw the former integrity commissioner, Christine Ouimet, especially appointed by the Conservative government to listen to the complaints of our public service, failing to do just that. On the other hand there are new on-line 'newspapers' like The Huffington Post which is becoming the eyes and ears of the world. We also have seen the power of Twitter, email and Facebook in bringing about unthinkable change.

While it is true that Gutenberg gets all the credit for the mass-produced word, the book itself was  originally invented 500 years ago by  Aldo Manuzio in Venice, Italy.  Since that day the power of the word has, and is still, changing the world. "In the beginning was the "word" - a source of tremendous power.

No one knows fully the future. But I would guess that the book that has the greatest chance of surviving is the novel. Look what has happened to encyclopedias. Wikipedia is free and available 24/7. Professional books and intellectual type books  lend themselves to the electronic age. But the longer novel in book form still has a special appeal for most people and thousands are still out there buying or getting them from their library. I am not sure I would like to take an electronic book to the beach or read it in the bathtub! Books, in book form, are  like pleasant memories or friends that many of us like to keep around. I don't think books will disappear entirely. The fate of the newspaper, in its present form however, may be a different story.

At least that's Dick's View of the World this week.