One way to glimpse a hint of our digital, new media future is to look at what’s disappearing. Membership in the American Booksellers Association, the trade group for independent book stores, has dropped to 1,524 from more than 5,000 in 1990.

Serving the reader teeming University of Pittsburgh campus area, recently closed Jay’s Book Stall more than held its own against gigantic competitors.  Even so, retiring owner Jay Gantry told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

“I’m so glad that we’re leaving now. It’s all become a bunch of gadgets these days.”

Gantry was not comfortable with the technological changes in how people read, including Amazon’s digital “book” display, Kindle. As Kindle and other e-book readers such as Sony’s Reader increase along with IPods, it seems only logical the books and music giants, such as Border’s and Barnes & Noble, will falter.

Well more than a decade ago an older and longtime friend expressed amazement and dismay over how shopping in the U.S. had somehow become a form of recreation.  Might we be coming full circle, with much of the pre-digital shopping replaced by strolls, bicycling, and just watching the moon, sunrise, or sunset?  Sure, there remains “recreational” shopping for the non-downloadable, such as clothes.  But how much longer can malls and clothing stores hold out against home shopping TV networks and the even more convenient shopping web sites?

Article Tags: Amazon Kindle | book sellers | book stores | home shopping | home shopping networks | Sony Reader | web shopping

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