Are books going out of style?

Twice today i've read separate posts that make me wonder about the future of the hand held book, the first one was a big shocker--Barnes and Noble is for sale. Apparently because of the popularity of Amazon, the kindle and most recently the Ipad, paperback books are going out of style. I remember when my favorite pastime--and still is, was going to the library and picking up a well-worn book and sitting in a comfy chair to read it. Just yesterday I was at an old bookstore called the Paperback shack, most of their books are used and cheap, when i walked inside the smell overwhelmed. The smell of old books, ripe for picking. Will the next generation never be able to smell that heavenly smell?

An article on Time's website, mentioned a list of ten items or things the next generation will never be able to see. While reading the list, I agreed with several of them--such as walk mens, and tan M&M's. But to my surprise, "real" books were also on that list. In a world brimming with technological advancement, will we really see such things as books, maybe even CD's going out of style? I would like to hope not, but the evidence--nooks, ipads and the recent decision of B&N challenges my thinking.

Can we the people do something about this? And further more, do we want to? Who knows, perhaps if publishers stopped printing books we could save trees and most importantly money. Our books could become cheaper! But the experience of reading a book, having it sit on a book shelf, or going to the library are certain experiences I'm afraid of losing.

Another thing beckons my attention, what would happen if everything was online? We would lose the bookstores to go to when we want to read a books inside cover, the novelty of being able to meet people with similar interests would be lost. The world would continue its downward fall of losing personal touch with reality and people.

All of these things scare me, i adore change--realize its importance in the world, but with this. The change seems like a disaster, or just a disaster waiting to happen.