Kindle is the latest in a series of electronic devices some have suggested will sound the death knell of the book. The demise of the printed book has been predicted since at least the 1970s – remember the “paperless office” that was supposed to be just around the corner?

Admittedly, it’s difficult to think of something that isn’t online nowadays. Even the legal profession, which perhaps most vividly conjures up the image of bookshelves filled with stacks of solemn law tomes and serried law reporters, has gone electronic: court decisions from all over the word, legislation, government debates and legal publications of all types, almost everything is available online at the click of a mouse.

Yet in the face of the technological leaps and bounds of the past centuries, books have persisted in more or less the same format, largely unchanged. The previous post on this site, discussing Google Goggles (see below), links to a fascinating presentation by researchers at MIT in which they showcase technology that will allow a somewhat frightening degree of information to be made instantly available to the wearer of the device. I mention this, because I was delighted by the interaction between this cutting-edge technology and the book. The wearer of the MIT device would only have to look at a book (or even think in the direction of a book, as mention is made of embedded brain chips) in order to receive a virtual projection of the latest book reviews, Amazon ratings etc. I find the implications fascinating: purchasers of this futuristic technology will use it to help them decide what books to buy. Aww. I had to smile. Here we have it folks, from researchers at MIT on the cutting, not to say bleeding, edge. However far we might advance, we’ll still be buying books. Actual books.

That said, no-one wants to curl up in bed or in front of a fire with a law report, or a piece of legislation. What is their use today, except as space-fillers? Their demise in printed form is long overdue, except perhaps to the film industry; their nice, uniform bindings do look attractive, after all. The next time you watch a movie or television show, take a closer look at the books in the background – 99.9% of the time, they are discarded law reporters. Goggle them, or ogle them, but let’s stop destroying trees to store them when, let’s face it, nobody looks at them anymore.