Founded in August 1998, netLibrary is located in Boulder, Colorado. As the world's premier provider of electronic books (eBooks), netLibrary helps academic, public, corporate and special libraries create a richer, more productive learning environment for their patrons. By combining the time-honored traditions of the library system with electronic publishing, netLibrary offers an easy-to-use information and retrieval system for accessing the full text of reference, scholarly, and professional books. netLibrary is a division of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization that provides computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing and preservation service to libraries worldwide.
Taken from the netlibrary website. These guys are about a hour north of me. I think that currently the shift from real books to e-books is going to be a hard one for some people to swallow. I know that I would have no problem sitting down with some coffee and reading a book online but for some of the older generation there is no way. Watch for there to be a shift in the way that people procure their books in the next 5 years. For more info on this visit The Shifted Librarian.
Magazines are an interesting medium. One must wonder if one of the big draws to magazines is the esthetics involved. I know that personally one of the only reasons that I hit the newstands on a monthly basis to purchase my surfer magazine was because of the free poster inside. We used to get the MacAddict in the mail but every once in awhile we would get a second copy on the newstand for the free cd inside. It will be interesting to see what kind of shift we as a society due to either phase out or keep the magazine stands intact.
I did some looking (not much) to try and find some numbers to track the amount of us mail that has been sent over the past several years to look at what kind of shift that we are seeing there. The public doesn't like to send regular mail anymore. E-mail is so much easier and quicker. However, the post office will NOT go out of business there will always be things that we need to send through the mail.
As for regular office documents, we have already made a huge shift in that area. We are emailing stuff back and forth rather then printing it out and setting it on someone's desk somewhere. It just makes more sense and makes for a better work enviroment. There are laws in place that say that scanned documents are as good as originals, I can't find the reference because it's 330am and I don't feel like looking, get over it. A digital signature is just as good as the real thing. Go to Best Buy and pay with your cc. You don't sign a piece of paper, you sign a screen. You can digitally sign any document online as well.
So will we shift to a paperless society? Who knows? I know that time will tell. As my children grow up they are going to be in a much more digital world then I was. |