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Weekly Ad#inTheNews {min-height:20px;} Advanced Search Advanced Search X include all of these words: include any of these words: include this exact phrase: exclude: Select a date range this week past 30 days past 3 months past year Create a custom date range From: To: TechnologyThe business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. TimesIKEA anticipates death of paper books, tweaks bookcaseSeptember 9, 2011 | 6:33pm
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.
RELATED:
Barnes & Noble's new Nook has a touchscreen, 2-month battery life
Amazon.com could sell 3 million to 5 million tablets in 2011, analyst says
Barnes & Noble's nook digital book reader to let users lend titles to their friends
-- Shan Li
Photo: Original version of the IKEA BILLY bookcase, still intended for books. Credit: IKEA
Twitter: @latimestechFacebook: TechTimesMore in: Amazon, Around the Web, eBooks, eReaders, Shan Li.entry {border-bottom:0px; padding-bottom:0px;}#sponsored1 {margin-bottom:15px;}
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