Amy hinted toward this topic a little in class, but I think it's an important discussion to have.
Tangent: When I started college, the digital "revolution" was just beginning to take off. I didn't have a cell phone. I rented a desktop computer from the campus technology department. I was still using a CD player and my camera took regular old film. Sure, I had friends who had cell phones, laptops, iPods, and digital cameras, but most of us just looked on enviously. That was only 10 years ago. Now, you're practically a social pariah if you don't have at least a cell phone. My point: things change quickly.
Not too long ago it was OK to specialize in print design, but now, it's poor decision making to not at least familiarize yourself with web development and the digital arena while you're in school.
I agree with you, Callan, that books won't disappear completely. But I'm not sure all of them will become art objects. Maybe those like Amy's Star Wars book? I do think our children will treasure all of them like we treasure things from our parent's past. In class when Amy asked how many people preferred to read on a screen, I thought it was interesting that only about half of the class raised their hands. That makes me think that it may take a few generations to truly see the future of books because we millennials may not be quite as ready to give up paper as it may seem.
My mom sent me an article last year by Rick Bragg in Southern Living Magazine. You can read it here. I loved the way he spoke about books as his treasured objects and his escape from the world. I feel the same way.
My favorite quote from the article: "But I hope I will never have a life that is not surrounded by books, by
books that are bound in paper and cloth and glue,
such perishable things for ideas
that have lasted thousands of years, or just since the most recent Harry Potter.
I hope I am always walled in by the very weight and breadth and clumsy,
inefficient, antiquated bulk of them, hope that
I spend my last days on this Earth
arranging and rearranging them on thrones of good, honest pine, oak, and
mahogany, because
they just feel good in my hands,
because I just like to look at their covers, and dream of the promise of
the great stories
inside."
I couldn't agree more.
