As we all know, hindsight is 20/20, whereas foresight tends toward the myopic. The fate of print books in the digital age seems to be providing us with another example that phenomenon. Even the most apparently obvious of futures can fail to pan out quite the way many of us thought they would.
It was not that long ago that consultant roadshows with titles like "The Future of Libraries: Do We Have Five Years to Live?" were telling us that the days of print books were numbered, and libraries along with them unless we:
- Diversified into new service areas
- Bought new, expensive software systems
- Hired consultants to help us manage change
Briefly, the argument went something like this: iTunes did away with music stores, Netflix did the same for video rental outlets, and now Amazon is doing the same for bookstores and libraries. Borders has fallen, and we're next up on the chopping block (or at least, our traditional service models are).
Various statistics were trotted out to bolster these claims, and it was hard to argue with the demise of so many bookstores, and the hyperbolic increase in Ebook sales. Surely our final disintermediation was just around the corner?
But, as XKCD reminds us, a hyperbolic curve is just the rising part of an S-curve, and no one knows just where it's going to level off until well after it does. So what we've been finding lately has somewhat confounded the earlier predictions, namely:
a. The number of independent bookstores has actually risen in the US in recent years.
b. Ebook sales have flatlined at around 20% of the market.
Both of which suggest that traditional library services (as in, a place where you can go to borrow physical books) might still have legs. It appears there's still a demand for print, and if publishers are choosing not to make everything available digitally then libraries will have no choice but to continue collecting objects made from dead trees.
Now I should probably lay out some disclaimers, lest you think you've stumbled on the blog of some antediluvian curmudgeon who despises all this newfangled technology stuff. I actually do agree with the consultants in certain ways. There are, obviously, heaps of digital information out there that we're dealing with right now, and that will only increase going forward. How we're going to manage and preserve it for the long term presents a series of fascinating technical and organizational challenges that will keep us busy for some time to come. I also think that diversifying into new service areas is a good idea - if there's a demand for maker labs, digital scholarship centres and so forth, by all means let's go for it.
Where I have a bone to pick with the consultants is the alarmist tone they often insist on taking. They cherry pick a few statistics and tell us the sky is falling largely, I suspect, to create an unwarranted sense of urgency. If they can convince us we're in a crisis situation, we're more likely to sign up for whatever solution they're offering.
Now, many consultants will deny that's what they're doing. They're simply here to help show the way, because that's what they do. But if that's truly the case, where are all the road shows with titles like "No end in sight: New evidence suggests ongoing relevance of traditional business models"?