Well over a hundred years ago, technology provoked heated arguments about the future of the book! Read this interesting 1894 article that predicts the books’ demise, entitled The End of Books, courtesy of the University of Iowa, from Scribner’s of the periods most influential journals.
An excerpt: My friend James Whittemore interrupted me. “And what will become of the libraries, dear friend, and of the books?”
“Libraries will be transformed into phonographotecks, or rather, phonostereoteks; they will contain the works of human genius on properly labelled cylinders, methodically arranged in little cases, rows upon rows, on shelves. The favorite editions will be the autophonographs of artists most in vogue; for example, every one will be asking for Coquelin’s ‘Molière,’ Irving’s. ‘Shakespeare,’ Salvini’s ‘Dante,’ Eleonora Duse’s ‘Dumas fils,’ Sara Bern- hardt’s ‘ Hugo,’ Mounet Sully’s ‘Balzac;’ while Goethe, Milton, Byron, Dickens, Emerson, Tennyson, Musset, and others will have been ‘vibrated upon cylinders by favorite Tellers.’
“The bibliophiles, who will have become phonographiles, will still surround themselves with rare works; they will send out their cylinders to be bound in morocco cases, adorned with fine gildings and symbolic figures, as in former days. The titles will be im- printed on the circumference of the case, and the most exquisite cases will contain cylinders specially copyrighted, editions of a single copy, in the voice of a master of the drama, of poetry, or of music, giving impromptu and unpublished variants of celebrated works.