Most Compelling Sentence: "But even if we imagine that, with time, more and more reader will be habituated to the online book--in part because they become accustomed to the technology and in part because the technology platform of the online book is more ergonomically designed--we can still safely predict that research libraries will continue to be needed because they are our repositories of precious documents: manuscripts, rare books, and similar materials" (44).
I found this sentence very interesting because I read Double Fold by Nicholson Baker for my final book review. In Double Fold, Baker details the destruction of books in the name of creating microfilm, online journals, and online books that will be preserved in the future. If we continue to destroy the printed word in favor of preserving information in different forms, then the unique role of libraries will be lost, according to Bernard Frischer. If libraries do not take care of the past, included "outmoded" mediums such as books, then the library has no place in Frischer's future, either.
With books, all there is, is the reader and the printed word. When our information appears in the guise of microfilm or, in this case, the digital book, the purity of the experience is infringed upon. According to Frischer, the library in the digital age will be valuable due to the quality of the experience one has at the library. Books are not cold and sterile like microfilm, or reading a tome on a computer screen. Libraries must remember that they originally existed to house books. To lose sight of the library's past would mean to lose sight of its future.
It is Frischer's opinion that the book is actually doing quite well at the moment. If the tradition of the printed word is as strong now as Frischer claims, then the library's role remains unthreatened. If librarians and unforeseen Acts of God threaten the book, however, then the future of libraries is up in the air.
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