The last of these represents a most interesting innovation, pointing unambiguously to an area where e-books will exploit the potential of the new technology. Otherwise, the printed book, that all-powerful cultural emblem for the past 550 years, seems safe. Those suspicious and fearful of change may find some comfort in this. What seems to them an essential attribute of the civilised life, to be cherished and even worshipped, will not be usurped by barbarous technology. That confidence may, however, be misplaced.
Electronic books are in their earliest infancy.
If the history of the printed book offers any guide as I think it does then within a short span of time we will come to see a remarkable revolution in books and their contents. A common feature of most technological innovations is that their early products mimic those of the technologies they seek to displace. The development of printing from movable type in the mid-15th century provides a particularly telling illustration. In both form and content, books printed on Johann Gutenberg's ingenious adaptation of the wine presses of the Rhineland attempted to imitate the appearance of manuscripts. Some printed books went even further in mimicking manuscript volumes by leaving blank spaces for the addition of hand-illuminated capitals, a feature of manuscript books since the early Middle Ages.