Shelflessness – No bookshelves in the digital age?

Geek shelves, Goddess love them, what would we do without them, but will we be shelfless in years to come. It may seem an odd concept to grasp as every geek loves their shelves – be it the DVD shelf, games shelf, action figure shelf, book shelf, CD shelf – but the onset of the total digital age will bring big changes. We think the humble geek shelf may have days that are numbered… let’s see why.

Although new disk movie format wars have only just ended, is it possible that within the next decade we may see hardcopy formats such as blu-ray give way to virtual copy, such as downloadable TV and film. Likewise with music and also video games. Already Gen Y’ers – Millenials – are accustomed to iTunes and other music download services and CD sales are steadily declining in favor of this simpler route. Book lovers adopt Amazon Kindle and other eBooks because its cheaper and more ‘green’. Tangibility in media seems to be fast becoming something archaic. Sure you may still need that shelf for your action figures, unless collectible avatars become fashionable, but in a few years time will our books, music, films, games and other entertainment all be made up of magnetic media you can’t touch?

What do you think? It would certainly make us all more minimalist, but that really doesn’t help those of us that feel a little bit of clutter makes things feel more lived in.

Comments left prior to site migration:

Joan
No one is going to take away my books! Never!
I would just go to printing it all out, or transcribing it if I’ll be that desperate! Stories have to be on paper!

J-Bird
I’ll always have books. No book/reading device I’ve tried ever works perfectly inside and out.
What’s a relaxing day at the beach without a good book?

Alex Archer
It’s interesting, because I have been thinking about this too, lately. I am a voracious reader and have an enormous collection of books, not to mention the regular influx of magazines I receive (I am a magazine junkie). Part of me would love to have the whole collection on a Kindle… that would certainly make things easier when it came time to move. However, nothing beats cracking open a book for the first time or the feel of it in your hands when you’re reading.

There is also something very charming and intimate about going to a friend’s house for the first time and seeing their collection of books and videos. Such a great source of conversation and you learn a lot about each other in the process. That’s probably what I’ll miss the most one day, when we’re storing all of our entertainment data on a device the size of a toothpick.

Zefbot
I’ve already moved in that direction and would embrace it more if I could. I see no need to have a physical copy of a movie, game or CD in this day and age but I think it’s going to take a while to move to full digital and downloadable content.

I’m not sure how this would all be managed but my wants are:

Can download content (whether it be movies,tv series, games, music) virtually instantaneously. If I’ve paid full price for it I can save it if I wish, view as many times as I wish, or simply download it again if I want on any device that suits me.

Need to be various price options depending on usage. For instance, I may want to watch a tv episode but almost definitely will only watch it once. I don’t want to have to pay full price for it. Offer me a cheap 24 hour viewing timeframe perhaps.

Apart from that the only area I still need a hard copy is with books. Just not as enjoyable to read off a screen for any length of time. Having said that, although I read lots, I don’t buy and hoard books like I used to. I get most of my books through the library as it’s rare I will read a book more than once. My favourite books and authors however still have pride of place on my bookshelf.

Swack
I have a Kindle, e-books on my Mac (although I find those hard to read), and a few small shelves of actual bound books (mostly reference). I also have a ton of comic books scanned into Mac and a subscription to Marvel Comics Online.

To satisfy my geeky need to organize and classify my various collections of books and DVDs in one central place, I use Delicious Library (I’m not affiliated with them in any way, just a fan of their app.)

It lets me keep a visual record of all my books and movies both digital and physical. I can arrange them any way I want into various collections, and even keep track of who I’ve loaned what to.

Another feature I really like is that when I do buy an actual hard copy of a book or DVD, all I have to do to enter it into my Delicious Library is hold it up to the iSight camera on my Macbook–Delicious scans the barcode and automatically adds the record.

Mercury30x
I dunno….there are just some books, classics, that I think you will always want to have a hard copy of because the story means something to you and its nice to have a tangible connection to that.

OTOH, there are some books you just read for mindless enjoyment, and books in that category, I would definitely consider going digital with, if it weren’t for the fact that the devices seem so expensive as do the prices of the available content (I’m looking at you Kindle). Plus there’s the whole rights management issue.

Nora
I think within 20 years we’ll all be reading “books” on electronic devices of some sort. I found this article interesting because I too was just thinking recently about how more and more of my media is becoming intangible. You kind of feek a bit ripped-off though that is the only real downside. But once we all get used to the new way I am sure that feeling will fade.

TheOne
Good article and interesting comments. It does seem more and more of us are utilizing new media and forgetting the old. Can you imagine the book store of the future just being like a room full of kiosks and you plug your ebook reader in and shazam. Hell we wont even need to go to a store like with the kindles net setup.