Week 11: Puddle Jumping into the Past

As soon as I read this week's blogging question, I quickly thought of a period of time that would benefit from some warning about the future of the book. If I had a TARDIS, DeLorean DMC-12 with a flux capacitor, or a time-travelling magic carpet, I would travel to 1990. That's right. Only twenty-six years into the past. 

I've chosen this date for several reasons. Let me point out some granular reasons that are relevant for selection, but are not particularly related to the blog question at hand:

1. I think it would be very, very challenging to explain to people in the distant past the concept of devices that can contain hundreds and thousands of texts, but take up the space of a stack of papers. With my luck, I would transport into the past only to be declared a witch, weighed against a duck, and executed. No, thank you.
2. It is my opinion that nature should take its course. While the blogging question told us that travelling to the past would not muddle up the future timeline, I am not willing to take that risk.
3. I'm not certain that people of the past would benefit from knowing about the future of the book. Why would someone participating in the French Revolution care about the multitude of electronic devices used to house many, many works? I'm sure they have other things to worry about.

Aside from all that, I would come armed with my message: there is a future for books.

Throughout my childhood, especially with the rise of reading platforms for youth such as Leap Frog, I have been told that soon books won't be around. Common rhetoric included phrases such as, "Computers will take over how we read, and by the mid-twenty-first century, there will be fewer and fewer print books released". It was a countdown on the life span of books! It sounded like some terrible George Orwell future!

I would let those poor schmucks in the early 1990s know that the future of books not only exists, but expands to become more accessible, more available, and more celebrated. (The number of blogs, Instagram accounts, and Twitters dedicated to books and book-related paraphernalia is astounding!) Books can be purchased and enjoyed in a variety of formats: they can be hoarded and stored while taking up little physical space, or continue to fill rooms, nooks, and crannies.

This message would be important to those lamenting the technological advancements and the dismissal of analogue materials. Perhaps parents and teachers could appreciate and more readily embrace reading aids for children, especially those that struggle with literacy, comprehension, challenges, and disabilities. In fact, the future of the book comes with new and improving ways to make books more readable and accessible to a greater mass. I would hope that a little early warning or heads up would allow people to more readily accept books in their many formats, and not attach a prejudice to something they quickly recognize as different. 

Don't worry, people of the 1990s; books will remain and in many forms.