Any time I'm making small talk with someone -- a new hairdresser, a nurse in the doctor's office, someone at a party -- and the question of what I do for a living comes up, the same follow-up question is inevitably asked. "So what do you think about these new ebook things -- are they going to be the end of libraries?"
The question always kind of amuses me, in part because I wonder if people are ever concerned that they'll give me something new to worry about. ("What if ebooks are the end of libraries?? Oh no!") It also, at least in the beginning, left me rather speechless -- because I honestly didn't have an answer for them.
But in my opinion, the real mystery is not so much a question of ebooks being the end of libraries as it is a question of ebooks being the end of physical, printed books, period. Are eReaders the next stage of evolution, similar to the invention of Gutenberg's printing press? Is this the end of an era?
