Heather Finley

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10355318-265.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

          The world of books is definately chaning.  Technology is taking over and chaning everything.  This is just more evidence of that fact.  Google is hoping to announce tomorrow that all their public domain book will be available to print on demand. 

          The idea that it is a answer to people reluctate to switch to digital still doesn’t seem right.  I think some people might like this option but it wouldn’t be for everyone.  It reminds me of being able to buy an album only through iTunes but burning it on a blank cd.  In reality it is exactly the same as having it on a cd you bought at the store.  I still think the majority of people want to buy the actual album though to have the artwork and everything like that.   This will be the same situation I would think.  I know I personally love having my books out on display and I love the way they look. Having a bunch of ones with plain covers that look exactly the same is not appealing to me.

          There are some good points to this though.  First off, this would be great at colleges.  It would help keep textbook prices down which would be the biggest advantage.  I also think it would save the bookstores a lot of money.  I don’t know how exactly they decide how many books to order but it always seems like they are sold out or have tons of copies.   With kids moving in and out of classes it is probably difficult to get an exact number.  This would help them be better at having exactly how much they need. 

          It would also make it so professors could get hard to order books for kids.  Did anyone else ever have to go get copies of something on hold at the library because the teacher didn’t have it ordered for the whole class for whatever reason?  I know my teacher did that for certain stories they wanted out of anthologies so each student wouldn’t have to buy another expensive book.  If these machines could do the same thing that would be extremely helpful.

          Another advantage would be that hard to find books would be available.  Say you are researching something for school or work or whatever.  Sometimes the books you want are not available anywhere near you.  If you could just have it printed for you, that would be so helpful. 

          On the negative side, this could have a bad impact on the world of book designers.  I thought about going into that business because it is so interesting.  There is a lot involved with making a book.  If more books then not end up being printed this way then companies might end up using less people to do this.

          Honesetly though, I can’t see this being something that blows up.  I think it isn’t going to be something that has a huge effect on the book world.  What do you think?