The Future for Books in the Electronic Era

Abstract

In the future a book may be bought as a bubble-wrapped package containing a dust jacket together with a computer chip from which the reader prints out the text at home. Publishers may not stock inventory but print books when customers order them. Information will be acquired from computerized databanks, but literature and poetry will remain in printed form. The usage of language may be changing under the impact of staccato TV-talk. Although most cultural and political life has always taken place outside the home, the new electronic technology may be creating an isolating "living room culture." These are some of the possible effects of the new electronic technology on the future of books and book publishing that were discussed by a panel of diverse experts in a two-day seminar at the Jerusalem International Book Fair in late April 1983.