I think it finally dawned on me this week that books (and by that I mean the codex) could actually fade from popularity.  On public radio the other day, someone quoted a projection that over half of books sold could be e-books within ten years.  That blows my mind.  Clearly I've had my head in the sand.

I have not yet gone the way of the e-reader.  Some of that is the cost, but mostly it's lack of interest.  I enjoy holding a physical books (and I want libraries to have something to do with all those shelves).  I do not want to deal with pitfalls such as the dreaded un-numbered pages and lack of search function that plague current models of e-readers.  Mostly I'm content borrowing *free* books from the library.  In my household, if we do buy a book, it's typically because it's a piece of art that we'd like to have and hold.  The Griffey chapter brought up a very valid issue: e-reader producers are currently more concerned with protecting their products from piracy than from making devices and books library-friendly.  Lending books becomes difficult when the books are limited to one device alone.

On the other hand, I have pretty readily taken to reading e-reserves, assignments, and syllabi on my computer, never bothering to print.  And now that e-books are being advertised as playable on computers, iPads, iPhones, and so on, the technology is beginning to interest me a bit more.  I am not particularly convinced that I need an e-reader that can only display black and white.  If I'm going to read books on an electronic device, I'd like it to have the capacity to do something like this: