One for the books - On The Media Podcast

A recommendation from Open Culture is always worth following. Contributor Ed Finn pointed to the radio program from New York Public Radio (WNYC) On the Media. On The Media is also published as a podcast. The program is presented by Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield and sits in the taxonomy News & Politics (iTunes Genre), but this episode was about books.

Books are by far the most successful media, but as we publish more and more content digitally, does this mean books will go out of print? The new development of electronic readers (notably the Kindle), will bring books to our hands without paper. And we have already abandoned newspapers, for reading news on line. Besides; wouldn't that be really great for forests, for the environment, if we did away with paper?

However, by offering parts of books (sometimes whole books) digitally and for free, publishers are still managing to sell more books. It is such a great pleasure, and maybe a need, to have a book, the paper, actually in your hands, nobody seems to want to give up on it. Digitally, we can have any book, any time, anywhere, available, but if we still want it in our hands... It turns out, a machine has been developed to supply this need with instant print. Great podcast episode.