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.
IKEA may be right. Certainly, times are changing -- and digitizing -- for the book business.
About 12% of American adults now own an e-reader, the first time that number has pushed into double digits since the gadgets became available. Sales of e-books in America finally surpassed those of adult hardbacks in the first five months of the year, and online retailer Amazon.com reported that it sells more digital books than ones printed on paper. Borders Group, once a book peddler to rival Barnes & Noble, is liquidating all of its U.S. stores.
Some have predicted that like the mastodon, bookstores too will go extinct.
Mark should have known I would be distraught the rest of the day by this news. The death of the paper book? I could care less by that comment. A new Billy? WHAT!? I'll have to Google a little harder because I can't find if they are discontinuing the original size or just adding an additional thicker version or even how much thicker the shelves will be.
Living in Nebraska, I just recently discovered the joy of Ikea a few years ago and purchased my first lovely Billy last year to test out the infamous shelves and house a portion of my troll family.
I measured and had visions of buying 1 1/2 more Billys with doors to fill this wall. It would have been glorious. Now I'm thinking do I "rush" (the closest one is an 8 hr drive) out and buy 1 1/2 more shelves? But if I someday move my shelves maybe I could expand so maybe I just want to find another spot for this Billy and start fresh? After all, I am obviously the target audience of this new version of Billy because I'm not seeing many books on my shelves. I could fit another row of trolls on shelves which are 2" or 3" wider!
That chair is glorious! Thrift find or heirloom?
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