I’m torn very completely on this issue.
On the one hand, I do love physical books. Their use (for now) with respect to non-fiction subjects is more accessible, I would think, than current e-book technology. That’s a small issue though and it will most definitely change with time. And I must say that I barely remember the last time I went through a physical copy of an academic journal. That they are online (and that I can put them on an e-reader) has been a major (MAJOR) benefit to studying more effectively. But I do think it is true that textbooks are better suited for print media than they are for electronic media.
Also, some fictional books really do require the actual physical presence of the book to make more sense. In this case I’m thinking specifically of Tristram Shandy where the book itself stands as both a kind of embryo where the character is “born” from the ink (sperm/semen) on the page. There are too many senses in which the physical book is needed in that case for the whole to be what it is for e-books to be appropriate. And I can think of a few other examples (though not necessarily really provocative ones) where that is the case. However, that’s specifically an author working within the physical medium that the genre itself was born from. The actual physical being of the book has structured how we read, how we think about reading, and how we think about writing. That’s why e-books are basically structured exactly around the idea of the book. Nothing much has changed in that respect and it’s why they haven’t been too much of a problem for people to adapt to. Reading still offers a linear path forward and you’re still asked to flip through the pages. Though it isn’t as “easy” as it is with a physical copy of a book, it’s still basically the same idea and will become a lot more interesting in the future. The real point I’m making is that the physical being of print media is monolithic and not easily changed regardless of whether the ink is physical or electronic.
There are some arguments I don’t really have sympathy for or understand very well. For example: students not opening a physical copy of an encyclopedia during their studies. So? If their copies are online and offer the exact same capabilities (arguably they save a lot of time and give the student a chance to search through more of the text–and it certainly takes A LOT less time to take information from it by typing than physically writing or actually trying to photocopy it), there really is no problem. I am sympathetic to libraries changing, but that’s a very complicated issue that would essentially require its own thread. Or the arguments that having thousands of books available is somehow a bad thing because people only read one book at a time. That strikes me as a non-argument. When I listen to a vinyl record I only listen to that record. When I’m listening to an mp3 album I am listening only to that album until it is done. The fact I have other songs available doesn’t present a problem, but it is certainly easier to switch to something else if I want so, as opposed to removing the record, putting it back into the sleeve, putting it back on the shelf, picking the new one, etc. etc. But the fact is that nothing much changes except the possibilities that are presented.
I love print media, I really do. I think physical copies of books are an important thing and we should most definitely continue to use them and probably print them. Having said that, the differences between reading experiences are so minimal that I think “arguing” for print media technology is a defense mechanism or something like that against feeling threatened by change.