The future: how will e-books affect libraries and the culture of reading?
Val Skelton has an interesting set of comments on the future of e-books in the 8 December 2011 issue of Information today Europe, where she reviews the proceedings of Online Information 2011 . Several speakers noted that the book industry is becoming somewhat like the music industry, with more consumers downloading material than entering a music store or bookshop. Inevitably, this will change the way in which media are marketed and will also have a profound effect on the way in which we shop, especially when the new generation of e-books become available. These are likely to offer a different experience of reading and provide better search and index facilities. What does it mean for libraries? Probably that services need to be geared to the “socially-networked” reader; however, what the impact might be in an African context has still to be explored.