[Antoninus]

The death of one business model gives rise to the next. CD sales have plummeted since the advent of digital music, doesn’t it make sense that books will follow the same path?

The difference is, most CDs are complete ephemera. And while many mass market paperback books fall into the same category, scholarly and professional books do not.

Lots of libraries fell into the trap of electronic media being the wave of the future 15 years ago. Now, many of them are stuck with legacy data in archaic formats that are increasingly hard to access. Personally, I want a book I buy to be easily accessible to me 10, 15, 20 years from now. Can anyone assure me that a Kindle/iPad/Nook book that I buy today will still be readable?

[r9etb]

Can anyone assure me that a Kindle/iPad/Nook book that I buy today will still be readable?

I think I've got an assurance like that in writing somewhere... ah, here it is. Can you open a WordStar file?