I discovered ebooks in the mid '90s when I got my first Palm Pilot. Ebooks were a novelty then, and the selection was small, but I liked the idea of carrying a small library literally in the palm of my hand.

My favorite feature of the e-reader was the backlit screen, which allowed me to read in bed without disturbing my husband. Being able to hold the book in one arthritic hand while at the same time reading large print text also won me over.

One can imagine my joy when my daughter (you all know her) opened her own e-bookstore. Reports of the e-book's increasing popularity appeared more and more often. I read them with relish and often sent them to Laura. Working as a reviewer for this bookstore, I reveled in learning about authors I had never heard of or previously ignored: Austen, Christie, Sayers, Heyer, Orczy, Green. Being tasked with discovering new authors was even more fun. What a joy to read Voynich, Farida, Snyder and Stout, and realize that we might be publishing books by the next J. K. Rowling.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal noted that people who buy e-readers tend to spend more time reading than previously, and they read in places that they ordinarily wouldn’t read, like using a phone as an e-reader on the subway, or even in a kayak with a baggie-covered Kindle. People with e-readers can even virtually “check out” books from libraries, and many e-book sites offer the first chapter for free so if the book is not to your taste, you don’t have to pay for it.

The e-book world opens numerous possibilities for the reader; so why am I so saddened at the news that Barnes & Noble is looking for a buyer, and that Borders is having its own troubles? My answer is that no matter how enamored I am with the e-book world, I am still very rooted in the ink-and-paper book world. When I enter a library or a bookstore, I feel like Harry Potter at Hogwarts. Very few things in this world are as enchanting as a room full of books. Ergo, the thought that the printed book could go away or at least diminish greatly within my lifetime is not one I want to linger on.

My response has been to start buying hard-cover first editions whenever I needed a book. (For example, I just ordered copies of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Men” and “Jo’s Boys” to compare our e-files against the originals.) I’ll hold on to these books as a hedge against an all e-book world. Perhaps other people are doing the same, and the printed book won’t go away at all. My own books would then be less likely to increase in value over the years, but I wouldn’t mind that a bit.

In the e-book's favor, digital books have the advantage of being search-able--the reason I purchased the Lilian Jackson Braun "Cat Who..." series for the Kindle, even though I already had the printed books. This series is rich with detail, and I need the search function to keep up with our LJB forum's well-informed readers.

A feature of the Kindle I use often is the built-in dictionary. Here, e-books have it all over printed books, since very few readers are dedicated enough to carry a heavy dictionary with them when they read. The beauty of the Kindle dictionary is that no extra effort is required to find the definition of an unknown word, other than moving the cursor to the word and checking the definition at the bottom of the screen.

I was doing the digital textbook thing even before I started reading ebooks. In grad school we had online access to digital texts in PDF format. So when the professor told us, "Write a paper on such and such," I simply searched the online library for essays and papers I could find on the topic and read them on my little laptop computer. Much better than checking out and toting around books! Another bonus for this method was that one professor apparently graded her papers by just looking in the back and counting how many resources were in the bibliography. A strange way to do it, but I ended up with the A while my friend, who is much smarter than I but who listed only a few sources from the hardbacks she checked out, got a lower grade.

But I digress--Shakespeare may be the one exception, for me, for reading pbooks. I have yet to see footnotes incorporated usably into ebooks, and with Shakespeare footnotes are a must. Otherwise how are you supposed to understand all the dirty jokes?

The "Pepper... and Salt" cartoon in Wall Street Journal for September 14 showed a beach with three trash barrels. One read "Aluminum Cans", one read "Plastic" and the last read "Summer Reads." I never thought of books as trash or even recyclables, so seeing this was a revelation for me. Chalk one point up for e-books, the ultimate in recyclability.

Come to think of it, I think I did mention that if the book is something new that I want to try on for size, I buy it for the Kindle, then buy the hardback if it is really good.

Bookstores and libraries can easily stay in business--though in ways that the Barnes & Nobles and Borders of the world might find hard to emulate.

Local bookstores should perhaps incorporate used books into the mix, though that approach probably won't last more than five years or so now, unless they deal with rare or early editions. They can also diversify and (many have already done this) become community centers as much as bookstores. Have a coffee bar and wifi and let people hang out there. Sponsor readings and have local politicians and interesting people stop by to speak. Local libraries already do that sort of thing, but they're so limited on funds they often can't stay open all the hours that a retail store can.

Libraries offer more than books--librarians offer guidance and curation (much like Laura does here!). Their function is to assist people to find information, and that includes digital information, so their function in the community will change, but not go away.

When I was a kid, the library was my favorite place to hang out. They used to have free old movies on Wednesday afternoons after school, and they had reading clubs and stuff.

On the other hand, eBooks may actually revive some out-of-print books, since the advent of POD--meaning Print on Demand. A machine that is probably similar in size to the original Gutenberg printing machine is now in use at many universities and some bookstores. The beauty of this machine is that it sits ready to print any of a zillion out-of-print books in the time it takes to browse through the new book section of a bookstore. Thus, even a mega bookstore could actually be small and cozy if it owns a POD machine, and yet be able to print just about any book that was ever written. The future of the printed book does not look so grim after all.

The name of the machine is "Espresso" and the company that makes it (On Demand Books) has visions of placing more machines in Universities and Bookstores, then expanding into cruise ships, train stations, and later poor countries as a way to "democratize knowledge." I like the idea of putting them in airports and hotels. Just imagine being able to order up Dorothy Sayers or Gorgette Heyer instead of the standard best seller stuff that is usually on the shelves. Still, now that I have a Kindle, I have that capability wherever I go, as long as I keep it charged.

Perhaps us ebookers are such because we are book lovers, no matter what the medium. I'm hard pressed to stay out of book stores and libraries, even though I have plenty of ebooks to read. Printed books, lot of them, like cats, dogs, birds and plants provide a welcoming environment that adds life to even the humblest space.

Watching that video kind of makes me wonder, though, why one would need a $25 pbook printed out if they can just fire up their ipad or whatever and read on there for free. Like Christine, I very rarely read pbooks at all, so I can't think of a reason why I have a use for this (other than if I were a bookseller and sold pbooks to other people).

I started thinking about what books I prefer to read on paper, and came up with a few that don't translate that well to ebook format at least currently (although the iPad and its ilk will certainly change that in the future.)

I like big, fat gardening books, sewing books, cook books, interior design books, and of course the coffee table type books to be on paper. Reference books are currently difficult to thumb through on an electronic reader, and the pictures don't come off well (or even at all) in most e-readers, especially when you have an old one like my Treo 680.

I also like to have books in several locations to serve me where I'm sitting, like on the kitchen table, next to my easy chair, and next to my exercise bicycle. My Treo stays by my bedside for nighttime reading, but during the day, when lighting is not an issue, I like to have a stack of paper books to read when I have a few spare minutes, like during lunch.

If the reading public has similar attitudes, then paper books will still hang around, and could spark a demand for POD printing, while we recirculate the books printed the old fashioned way. I wonder if this could increase the value of hardbacks someday.