IKEA anticipates the death of books with bookcase meant for knickknacks, not books

[Liberal_in_LA]

IKEA anticipates death of paper books, tweaks bookcase

Will this symbolize the death knell of the paper book?

Furniture giant IKEA will debut a new version of its classic BILLY bookcase that is intended to store everything except well-thumbed reading material, a report says.

Coming out next month, the tweaked bookcase will feature deeper shelves meant to display "ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffee-table tome -- anything, this is, except books," the Economist reported.

The Swedish furniture company is already pushing glass doors for its bookshelves, anticipating that customers will increasingly utilize bookcases for decorative purposes, the report said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/ikea-bookcase-e-reader.html

[hobbit709]

1. My wife used practically every inch of shelf space here for her dust collectors.

even the shelves with books on them were cluttered up with them.

[Goblinmonger]

2. I'm an English teacher and I love books, but paper books are dead.

That I can carry thousands of books on my Nook is a very, very good thing. Heck, I can even read anything from my Nook collection on my Android phone if stuck unawares somewhere.

Now, I do also collect old books, but I can always find someplace to keep them.

[Donnachaidh]

3. books are not dead -- there is going to be a huge collectible market for them

Paper books will become investments for elites. And others who can afford them.

[Tom Ripley]

15. +1 (n/t)

[AndyTiedye]

17. In Which Case They May Still Want the Glass Doors to Protect the Bindings

[Donnachaidh]

30. lawyer bookcases work well with antique book collections. n/t

[snooper2]

4. I store all my nice antiques and china in MDF

:rofl:

[Matariki]

11. And I destroy old growth forests and tropical rain forests for mine

:P

[Lex]

5. I'm pretty damn sure I can still put books on those shelves.

I don't keep paperbacks anyway. I donate them or give them to friends to read.

[brooklynite]

6. We had several real Estate Agents look over our house...

...to get some guidance on renovations that would have resale value. They all said not to install permanent bookshelves, because future buyers (10-15 years) would very likely have all their media in digital formats: no books, CD's or DVD's.

[SheilaT]

7. Sigh. Paper books are not dead. They aren't

dying, and aren't even very sick. Paper books will be around for a very, very long time. Unless the e-readers get down in cost to maybe ten bucks each, millions of people around the world aren't going to be buying the. And I can hardly wait until the next major upgrade of the Nook or the Kindle, and everyone who owns one of the old ones now has to not only buy a new one, but re-purchase all of the books they'd bought before.

Movies did not die, even though the coming of television had many predicting just that. We are still quite a way from a truly cashless society.

Perhaps the more important thing is that you can skim through books in a way that is totally different from trying to do the same thing electronically.

[dmallind]

13. This part is absolutely false

...everyone who owns one of the old ones now has to not only buy a new one, but re-purchase all of the books they'd bought before.

No they do not. All e-book purchases are archived online and can be downloaded onto multiple devices, including newer or repacement nooks as well as PC's, tablets, phones, etc on demand. This is one of the advantages - no need to worry if one of your books gets damaged or lost.

[exboyfil]

14. Really the two ebooks I bought five years ago from

Amazon via PDF digital edition where native to my two computers at the time. That booksite was closed down, and when my old XP machine finally gives up the ghost, then I will have lost permanent access to them.

Nothing is forever. Any locked format can go away at anytime. I still get nervous about my huge Audible library, and I have put the very best books on my hard drive.

[dmallind]

18. Never heard of pc-specific pdf formats

And Amazon certainly hasn't gone away. You bought from their marketplace maybe? From a company that only allowed a single download with no ability to save a copy and, say, email to self on an unlimited storage Yahoo etc account? Strange but possible I suppose.

In any event this is not the case with the big two e-readers (and probably the others too, but can't say first hand there), where replacement is a few seconds away, and likely safe for as long as either company's business remains, even if bought by others. Sure I suppose they could decide to no longer open the old format at some time in the future, but that would be a really stupid business move. There is no comparison to, say, PCs that have to run old software from thousands of software providers.

[exboyfil]

21. Purchased from Amazon, LLC

Still shows up in my Amazon history, but click on it and it goes no where.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

19. How odd.

Every book purchase I've ever made via my kindle account is stored by Amazon and available via Cloud Technology to any of my devices. I can read them on my kindle, my PC, my phone, my Ipod, or even my Ipad. Whatever I happen to have with me at the time can download and access all my Amazon purchased books. It can even sync between readers so I'm on the right page.

[exboyfil]

20. Purchased through Amazon.com, LLC

on March 29th and March 31st, 2006. They still show up in my Amazon history. "The Black Book of Outsourcing" and "Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants". I used them for a Globalization project in an engineering class. I contacted Amazon about them about three years ago when my work computer was changed. They said I no longer had access to them (they basically said that marketplace was closed up - sorry Charly).
I have been reluctant to purchase ebooks ever since. I have tried to load the file from my XP machine to my personal laptop or my new work computer. No can do. I am a little irritated, but if it had been a more expensive book (such as an engineering textbook), I would be livid.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

24. Ah, they were Marketplace purchases

Those are different and dependent on the vendor you actually purchased from. In sales like that Amazon is the third party, not the supplier. It makes sense now. You should have kept a copy on a separate drive, not that that helps you out now. :(

I think you might be able to find both of those for free on the web, though.

Try this: http://findebookee.com/t/the-black-book

And this: http://ebookbrowse.com/the-art-of-guerrilla-marketing-for-consultants-pdf-d75576418

Not sure if that helps or not.

[Rex]

8. Stupid and shortsighted. Don't they know that people collect

crystal animals and put them on display in...wait for it...bookselves! IKEA is decades behind the times on this one.

[Romulox]

9. Would that it were flat-pack furniture that was "dying"... nt

[TBF]

10. Not to mention Ikea's labor practices. nt

[JVS]

12. Big mistake

You lose a lot of your cachet when you become the decorator of illiterates.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

16. Maybe a bit premature, no?

Think about it, even IF the sale of paper books were to stop today, which they're not about to, there are still billions of books already owned by readers in need of a place to be stored. I know I have hundreds of paper books I'm keeping, and I'm always adding to the collection with specific books I've been looking for, or releases from authors I collect. I own an e-reader with a few hundred books on it, but I still have a ton of paper books to manage as well.

[Starry Messenger]

22. The "Death of the Book" has been rumored for decades.

It's still holding on.

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. Just barely. Borders closing down. BDalton, Walden gone. Other stores on life support.

[Starry Messenger]

29. I order from alibris.com

Just got a huge stack today. Borders had a shitty business plan, I used to work there. If they'd stuck to books they probably would have done ok, but they tried to do too much and quality thinned out. BDalton was owned by Borders, so they went down with the ship. How is Barnes & Noble doing?

[stuntcat]

34. yay alibris

and used bookstores, and Goodwill :P

I worked at Borders too, in a few different cities. We made our last trip there yesterday, to a store my husband worked at years ago. It was kinda sad.

We're still collecting books, as long as we have space. I guess it's because I'm old, but I feel weird letting reading depend on whether or not we have electricity.

[Donnachaidh]

32. the large chains may be going the way of the dinosaur

However, I doubt if classic bookstores like the Strand in NY will close in this century.

Large chains almost destroyed small booksellers. But the smaller ones will bounce back. Especially as the bigbox ones implode.

[LeftyMom]

23. A deeper Billy would be lovely for... odd-sized books!

Children's books, cook books, craft books, art books... many books come in larger formats that would benefit from deeper shelves. If I can get one to match my son's other shelves I might buy one, it'd clean up some of the visual clutter caused by all of the books that stick off the end of his normally-sized Billy shelves.

edit: On second thought, Ikea already made a bookshelf that's better for random crap than for books, the Expedit. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40047675 It's attractive, but it's non-adjustible cubbies are sort of impractical for serious book storage.

[stuntcat]

25. I guess I'm glad we got our Billys before they changed them

We have four Billy bookcases, they're perfect.

We're still collecting books, long as we have room to keep them. If there's a time when the power's down and people don't have their own solar power and aren't able to charge all their devices for a few days, at least we'll have some reading..
Of course us lucky first-worlders will always have all the power we want! and all the clean water too, I hope.

[Retrograde]

27. Methinks IKEA marketing is trying to make the best of a situation

We need to bring down the cost on these bookshelves, so we'll use flimsier material. Hmmm, they don't seem to hold books as well...let's say we're anticipating the death of the printed page! They're not bookshelves, they're trinket shelves!

[lynne]

28. Smart move by Ikea. Paper books are definitely on the decline -

- and that's a GOOD THING. Better for the environment and less expensive to the consumer. You can own and carry far more books electronically than you ever could with paper.

Had newspapers figured this out when it was evident - about 10 years ago - then fewer of them would be at death's door. Magazines need to accept this fact, too.

Too bad knickknacks can't be owned and displayed electronically. I'd have much less to dust if that were the case.

[pitohui]

31. how does a glass door stop you putting a book in?

as a person with dust allergies i kinda wish all bookcases had glass doors, my bookcases with glass doors require significantly less dusting than those without

[Shagbark Hickory]

33. E-readers are a dream come true for a modern scandanavian style house.

Less clutter.