The bookstore - 2015 edition


David Houle, futurist, predicts the future for the bookstore on Bookriot.com

The perception of books as physical objects will continue to morph. 2015 will be the time when two things happen in this regard.

First, the majority of books that people read will be digital, but the books that have emotional significance, that have a personal meaning, will be physical. I may have Alvin Toffler’s and Marshall McLuhan’s books digitally, but I also have them in physical form. They helped shape my identity and my thinking in years past, so they are personal legacy. It is nice to hold onto one’s legacy.

Second, physical books will take on a sense of provenance. The provenance of having read this copy of a Kerouac novel in my 20s [$.95 ] that I have moved with me all these years, or the provenance of an actual book that a loved one or an admired person had owned. If there was a store that sold Dr. McLuhan’s book collection, I would buy a book because he owned it.
These two trends, I think, suggest that the “used book store” will be ascendant.

Full entry.