"IKEA Anticipates Death of Paper Books, Tweaks Bookcase"

OK, the headline is a bit over the top but still worth a mention.

From the LA Times:

Will this symbolize the death knell of the paper book?

Furniture giant IKEA will debut a new version of its classic BILLY bookcase that is intended to store everything except well-thumbed reading material, a report says.

Coming out next month, the tweaked bookcase will feature deeper shelves meant to display “ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffee-table tome — anything, this is, except books,” the Economist reported.

Here’s the Full Text of The Economist Story: “Great Digital Expectations”

It Includes:

Publishers are increasingly trying to push books through online social networks. But Mr Murray says he hasn’t seen anything that replicates the experience of browsing a bookstore.

Efforts are under way. This week a British outfit called aNobii released a trial version of a website that it hopes will become a Wikipedia-style community of book lovers, with an option to buy. The idea has potential. Amazon’s recommendation engine, although helpful, is rather impersonal—perhaps the retailer’s second-biggest weakness, after the resentment publishers feel for it.

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Journal Articles, Publishing