http://www.webinknow.com/2009/02/does-a-new-literacy-call-for-a-new-book-model.html
Interesting thoughts in the linked article, but this would be a tragedy..., to replace a book with basically a website, in print or digital... although over half a million Kindles have been sold since the Christmas shopping season... Geeks and the tech savvy would not consider me one of their own, but IT in particular does not scare me and in most cases I happily embrace it. Information is important, but it's not just about the information and the efficiency. Or is it? Maybe more is said with less construction, but you have to think--the suggested layout and content might be the lazy way--the basic tech way, but not the artistic and pure science way. Remember why the world was falling apart in the first book of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy? Nobody knew how to think anymore or what the human or pure science foundations under the tech were. Not every thing should be boiled down to a tech manual. I can just see To Kill A Mockingbird in this suggested style; the publisher could put a "contact us" link to the NAACP, or the KKK, or PETA (someone is going to kill a bird!?) depending on the reader's viewpoint, and a video of scenes from the movie, and links to other books written about this subject and about travel to the South, and of course some ads focused on the behavioral research on the type of person who would read this book, maybe a coupon for Expedia... Wow, really makes me want to curl up by the fireplace (a digital one on my computer screen of course) and get into the story. 
I will die loving books and the simple art of the word and what is said and not said in the white space between the words and if I really think about it, the letter font and the binding and the dust jacket (all really great books have a hard cover edition), and handwritten notes and fountain pens and different types of ink and handmade paper and the art and tactile nature of it all... (And a few people that follow me on Twitter would probably say--metaphorically speaking, "better off dead.") So, I have published these thoughts on a blog; now isn't that ironic. Maybe I should just title the article: Sui Generis and say "so be it."
And then there is the library itself. In my personal library in my previous home my daughter had painted the words above the entrance: "When I step into this library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it." -- Marie de Sevigne. Could a digital library ever look like this?
Check out some of the beautiful libraries of the world at:
http://curiousexpeditions.org/2007/09/a_librophiliacs_love_letter_1.html
You won't be sorry.
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