We’ve been asked more than once in recent days to prognosticate about the future of newspapers, books and other “dead tree” technology, so we try to keep up with the latest developments.

We ran across this interview with Bob Stein, the director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, by David Cohn of NewsAssignment.Net.

To summarize, the Institute for the Future of the Book experiments in new forms of intellectual discourse as it shifts from the printed page to the networked book. The Institute works on several concurrent projects and blogs about them on the Institute’s web site, Cohn writes. Work done by the Institute centers on enlarging the boundaries of books so that they can better include conversations.

“In what ways can books include margin notes by multiple readers of the book?” he asks.

Since he works in a public library, he asked Stein about what future libraries are going to look like.

Stein said that while it’s difficult to predict what libraries are going to look like, chances are good that physical libraries will take on more of a social function - that they’ll become more of a meeting place. Librarians will always be people who “know the terrain” and help guide community members through the terrain.

Read the full interview here: The Future of the Book.

Tags: Blog News

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