Letters to the Editor
This letter is associated with the following article:
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books are obsolete, they're not going anywhere
once a technology is relegated to obsolescence, it gains permanence. the city became a museum when the margin between the center and the outlying areas of economic production vanished. preliterate children understand computers before they understand how to read. the medium in turn defines everything we do, and in turn shapes our social, political and religious institutions.
when books are no longer the primary method by which people gather information, those institutions will change also. we have at least, at this moment in history, a conscious grasp of the problem.