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In bed with a robot

The good old printed book versus the new, somewhat suspect electronic book. Anne Fadiman, author of the novel "Ex Libris", says that holding an e-book in your hand is "like going to bed with a well-made robot rather than with a warm and tender person whom you love". This is the level of emotion involved in the argument about the future of the book, against the digital offensive, reading on a screen and e-book readers like Amazon's "Kindle" device which is set to be launched onto the market this summer. The argument is not about usability, but focuses on the "sensory element": the book, warm and smooth like a lover, and the e-book, cold and hard like a robot.

I appreciate the sensory benefits of the book too, just not in quite such an amorous way. For instance, I can swat flies with a book, but not with an e-reader. I can chuck annoying books into a corner without instantly ruining my entire book collection. I can give a beautifully crafted book as a present to a girlfriend, but a downloaded novel could never be seen as respectful, affectionate or romantic.

So I don't have to start waxing lyrical about olfactory pleasures and tactile sensations. I can state quite matter-of-factly: nothing beats the printed book in social terms. The bookshelf is not only the stereotypical backdrop of the traditional intelligentsia. Even those who only read "Harry Potter" like to line up the chapters of their own lives on a bookshelf in the form of tangible, well-thumbed volumes, bearing the unmistakably personal signs of years of use.

And the future won't change that. Media don't cancel each other out, they complement each other. Whenever something new has come along, the old has always remained. The newspaper has not replaced the book, radio has not replaced the newspaper and television has not replaced radio. Media advancement works in a cumulative way, rather than by substitution. Why should that suddenly change?

In the debate about the digitisation of writing, both camps bandy the same argument about: the end of the printed book. Only some lament it and others celebrate it. Luckily, that's just nonsense. Digitisation is more likely to boost printed book production. Just like the launch of the "paperless office" did back in the day.

Ludwig Hasler