A Silent Place – With WiFi

Yglesias also discusses libraries and how they are coping with the age of the e-book and the potential savings:

 So if a library can save $5 per book on acquisitions by going digital, then every thirty or so new books it acquires generate enough savings to buy a Kindle that can be made available to folks who don’t already own an e-reader…. Once you consider storage costs and the fact that electronics are getting cheaper very rapidly, I think it would almost certainly be cheaper for public libraries to shift to purchasing e-readers and e-books instead of stocking physical books.

This doesn’t contradict the beauty of the library as a place of silence mentioned here, but older people will need to adapt to the idea. I think more important then libraries would be to issue e-books preloaded with textbooks for all school kids. The amount of books kids carry today has become a serious health issue with the back strain and so this would be a great solution. Kids are already used to owning expensive iPods and Laptops, an e-reader would not be a large step. Ad in some sort of tablet for writing answers (emailed direct to the teacher each night) and you immediately have a 21st century classroom, for a cheaper and cheaper marginal cost.