I’m over 30. ‘Nuff said… %) I have a personal library of several hundred (maybe a few thousand – haven’t counted lately) books of all kinds. You could call me a book lover – I’ve lugged a few hundred kilos of dead trees around with me all around the state of Western Australia by now. And four years ago I made the conscious and deliberate decision to not unpack the books. I’ve saved four 2m bookshelves’ worth of space in the house, about a day of unpacking and arranging, and I’ve almost not missed them. I take random books out of boxes sometimes, and read them (just to prove to myself I can still read books I think) and I still think books are friends that are always there, power cuts or no.

I’ve *almost* gone to the point of selling the majority of the books, and I’d be better off if I did, as I wouldn’t have to store them and keep an eye on their state of preservation. I’ve resisted so far – after all, a cookbook is easier to balance in the kitchen than a laptop, and a programming manual can be opened on the table beside the laptop without requiring an extra screen. So I’m kind of conflicted.

I do know that my reading habits have changed. Once, I’d take fiction books out five or six at a time, and read my way through a series or collection. Now, I tend to absorb more fragmentary information, news articles and short stories, online puzzle games and so forth. And for me, TV also took over some of the escapism – I didn’t have a TV until I was in my mid 20′s and never really started watching TV regularly until I was in my late 30′s, so that may have more of a bearing on my changed habits.

I’d always loved being in the library since school days, and for decades, you’d find me in my local library at least once a week, and averaging three visits a week. I’d take out science fiction, fantasy, comedy, Asterix & Obelix comics, books on the various sciences, technical books – you name it, I’d read it.

I now find libraries are to me more a repository of “useful” information, that is, a)- information I am going to put to practical use, such as cooking gardening or DIY, or b)- information I’m researching for my own education such as histories, biographies, and (blush) pop-sci books along the “How It Works” sort of line…

Also used my local library to go online, print documents, and loan DVDs and audio CDs for entertainment/information/etc. The role of the library for me, a non-student average Joe Bloggs, had changed. I found more of the information I needed online, and in fact I think the Internet became for me what the library had been in my younger years.

Now I find that I want to go to a library to ask the librarian about something that Google and Wikipedia haven’t given me a result on. And I find that librarians today are younger than me, and don’t seem to have as much information in their heads as I recall those much older than me librarians had… %)

Maybe librarians should be less regarding themselves as “guardians of books” and more as “guardians of knowledge.” Books have been invaluable to human development and need to be preserved and kept – but knowledge is all about information, and information is what’s in those books. And these days a lot of that information flows just as well through the Internet to my screen.

I have found one clear advantage of reading an e-book. When struck down with middle of the night wakefulness one doesn’t have to turn on the light and disturb your partner in order to read your book.

Also when considering the way the young “read” we should also consider audio books. My 13 year old always goes to sleep listening to his latest book not reading it.

your to do list is practical and there’s a few things on there i could definitely do with following up on myself. maybe we should do something collaborative. an online learning program focussed on all things ebooks?

By rhe way, have you seen http://www.tumblebooks.com/, which is said to have been a success among kids?