by Gary C. Gibson

Created on: October 18, 2009   Last Updated: December 06, 2009

Books will not become obsolete any time soon. New forms of book like items are on the increase. Many have technical processing ability. What is needed are virtually disposable cheap books that are solar power capable of being reloaded and read in the dark or in the rain. Books will be like little storage units. Alternatively books may be made out of edible materials that taste sweet like honey but become bitter in the stomach. Who can say for sure what the future will bring?

Digital books and digital library lending are increasing in number. For authors that's good news. A book is a book regardless of the medium in which its print actualizes.

Mechanical computer brained librarians may replace books on shelves in the future. They would be cheaper to keep and might not importunately chat when one is trying to read a newspaper. Many, many bureaucratic jobs could be eliminated with suitable systems design.

One of the computer things I don't like are the thousands of empty radio stations around the U.S.A. that are robotically operated clone programming repeaters. When I grew up Radio Station POOR had a live player of .45's and actually was at the station in person talking in a microphone. The ability to have one global corporate psychdrawlogist programming the masses through a thousand stations simultaneously didn't yet exist. Books in large paper format are kind of good reading. They have the same elegant feel as do graphic novels de luxe, yet with a science fiction story such as The St. Novilistricka Plan we just get a more authentic presentation-as if it was printed out on the demand of an interested party on Earth. Inclusions of other items in a book, or finding other uses for book pages may keep the paper format alive, even if it's replaced with thin film solar sheets. Books might be printed on such items as a way to sell two products at once. Competing with Verizon won't be easy. The Droid with Google android OS is a tough cookie to better.

What concerns me as a writer is the diffusion of one copy of a digital book lent by a library through electronic cloning into a billion copies with no return to the author. Plainly library digital books and rentals ought to have some sort of a virus built into each download such that the book's bits bite it after a few days reading. There are many use-for-a-while internet software programs that are good only for a limited time before blowing up. Books that are downloaded should just fade away after a couple of weeks so

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