BARNES & Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain, has experienced another significant loss during its most recent fiscal quarter and is projected to lose money during every quarter of 2012. This continued downturn persists months after Borders, the second largest bookstore chain in the country, officially closed all its stores.
A major cause of these franchises' declines is that e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and the Nook have undercut the sales of traditional books. As a result, conventional bookstores now must innovate and join the technological literary movement by selling e-books or be at greater risk of failure. This is unfortunate. The rise in the usage of e-readers and the online purchasing of books is destroying the sentimental values of books.
As with so many products these days, the driving force behind book digitization appears to be convenience. Buying books electronically saves a trip to the nearest bookstore, and an e-reader allows one to carry many books in one small, portable unit. For publishers, there also is the chance to save money by selling books electronically thanks to the ease with which e-books can be copied.
Additionally, e-books offer the opportunity to resize fonts and zoom in on pages, which benefits people who want greater control of their reading experience. And e-books are rendered with the neatness of images on a computer monitor - there are no ripped pages, smudged ink or other blemishes on the pages. From an environmental standpoint, substituting traditional books with their electronic counterparts also helps to save trees.
Yet e-books are killing the personal significance that books hold. Reading a real book - given that it is in good shape - is both a textual experience and a visual one. Having a tangible book in one's hands is preferable - there is something to be said for being able to physically turn a page, write in a margin or earmark a page. A tactile book can be unique to the person to whom it belongs. The same level of personal meaning cannot be attributed to an electronic copy of a book read on a Kindle.
Books are more than just printed words on a page. They are objects that can elicit memories and describe different times even before they are read. Old copies of books can be passed down in families to successive generations, becoming family heirlooms. Here, the meaning of a book may not be so much the writing itself as the fact that it once belonged to a significant person and serves as a symbol of family.
Books retain authenticity from the time in which they were published, too. Reading an old book can be a different experience from reading a new one because of the differences in look and feel that set the two apart. Books read on e-readers all appear the same on a glass screen.
Books are also a way to express one's identity. Libraries in homes, for instance, are often collections of important or favorite books. Their display brings a personal touch to a home, much like paintings or photos mounted on the wall. A library consisting of an e-reader on a shelf, in contrast, leaves a lot to be desired. The books contained within the e-reader are telling about a person, but the fact that they are generic copies stored inside a machine makes their meaning less substantial.
It is doubtful that traditional books will ever be eliminated completely. Compact discs and digital video discs are still widely sold, and even vinyl records are not uncommon. But as the usage of e-books increases, normal books will be demanded less often.
The New York Public Library has even begun using e-books, meaning that people can now read books for free without even leaving their beds. It is to be expected that this convenience will continue to appeal to people. Hopefully, though, readers will remember that books can be more than just printed words.
Alex Yahanda's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at a.yahanda@cavalierdaily.com.
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