The End of Books?

An NPR story this morning caught my attention. The basic focus of the story is that some college campuses are switching away from textbooks and going to on-line versions instead. What? No books?

Well, that got me to pondering. Would the end of books be a good thing or not?

I remember watching the movie “Fahrenheit 451” with great fascination. Based on Ray Bradbury’s dystopic view of the future, the movie envisions a hyper-controlled world where books are outlawed. The temperature of the title refers to the degree at which books burn. People are encouraged to seek pleasure in various hedonistic ways. But they may NOT read. One of the great twists of the movie is that the firemen have the job of seeking out and burning books. Much of the plot turns on the attempts of characters to find and keep books. The movie ends with a refugee colony of people who have memorized books. The final scene is of them walking around, quietly murmuring their memorized book.

So, of course, a book is not specifically the paper on which it is printed. For Christmas, my husband got a Kindle for me. While he was intrigued with the technologic possibilities, I read far more than he does. So he suggested getting ME one. At first, I demurred, but now that I have a Kindle, I find it a great new way to read. I can read the Kindle in places where books are not quite so handy—for example, while riding an exer-cycle.

The words on the Kindle screen are the same as the words on a printed page. The advantage, other than its shape and the instant access to books (which you “simply” download using cell-phone technology) is that you can look up word definitions or footnotes simply by clicking on the appropriate place.

But, back to college and whether or not we will see an end to books. Certainly, one of the advantages of going to on-line books is cost. Textbooks are outrageously priced. And, sadly, professors are somewhat like physicians. We order these textbooks and have no idea what they cost—just as physicians order tests or prescriptions with no idea of cost. The cost of a single textbook can be $200. Or maybe even more. The textbook that I am currently using in class (which was pre-selected by a faculty committee) costs about $50. I am aware of some college professors who write their own textbook and then require that text for class. Hmmm—can that be ethical? I don’t know if they get royalties or not.

So, how do on-line textbooks fit into this consideration? An on-line textbook is usually about half the cost of a paper one. Of course, I do wonder if you can sell the on-line version; many of my students are using second hand textbooks which naturally cost less than new ones.

Apparently, another major motivator for switching to on-line textbooks, other than cost, is that so much of what a student has access to in our present wired environment is on-line. Music, personal communication, calendars, information gathering, photo albums. . . .All on-line. So why not textbooks?

There is another consideration that causes me to pause in this mad dash to on-line textbooks. I recently read an analysis of how our wired environment is changing the way we think. The author pointed out that our tolerance for long discourse has plummeted. We simply don’t take the time to read long passages. He hypothesized that reading on-line combined with the instant availability of references that are cross-linked has changed how our brains are wired. We begin to read a piece on-line; we encounter an unknown term or a hyper-link. CLICK. We zoom away from our immediate reading task. And click again. . .and again. Next thing we know—we are far from our original assignment.

The end of books? Not for me. Oh, sure—I will keep reading my Kindle. I will surf the Internet, clicking further and further from my original place. But I will also finger the paper of a new book. I will look at the font, and admire it—even turn to the back to see if there is an explanation of the font. I will line books up on the shelves in my house. And, I will keep the 451 F firemen at bay.