The book industry is in digital turmoil, not quite knowing which way to turn but knowing it will have to turn at some point. So, the digital soothsayers are the ones to watch – predicting which way sales will go, publishers should move, and the public will read in the not-too-distant future. It makes great punditry, a spectator sport, but one with some very significant consequences, particularly for the future of education.

So, a recent article in paidcontent.org tells us that the book industry is on the cusp of becoming the most digital in the publishing landscape. What they is is extrapolate from some recent figures to predict that, in the US, the value of e-books sold will reach a tipping point of $3 billion  by 2015. Here’s how they work it out:

Just 7% of online adults who read books read e-books. But that 7% happens to be a very attractive bunch: they read the most books and spend the most money on books. And here’s the kicker – the average e-book reader already consumes 41% of books in digital form. Oh, and that includes the people who don’t have an e-reader yet, which is nearly half of them. For those that have a Kindle or other e-reader, they read 66% of their books digitally.

That tipping point will mean that the publishing default will be digital. Print and ink won’t go away but they are likey to become a luxury product, perhaps printed on demand and produced through some very different relationships between authors-publishers-readers. Interesting insight on this process are beginning to emerge as we work through the self-publishing model of Lulu and the refreshing experiments of OR Books. And the pace of change is rapid. A year ago nobody was carrying around iPads and few were seriously thinking of how Apps could be integrated into publishing and business models. Now reports on this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair have stories of people taking notes on their iPads, demoing new products through it and swapping Apps to use on it. For the second year, The Frankfurt Book Fair teamed up with O’Reilly Media to produce the Tools of Change conference examining the ways in which digital + mobile + tools is are driving big publishers to think carefully about their plans for the future development.

On a more local note, Higher Education is not and will not be immune from such changes. Traditionally conservative, the latest cuts will continue to drive the imperative to digitise and encourgage the increasing use of digital resources for students. Lets hope that the mantra of more (now laptop) computers means better learning will finally be ditched in favour of some innovation by Universities – or at least partnerships in innovation. Over the past 15 years we’ve been starved of hardware innovation – faster, smaller, funkier computers – but if so much academic media is to be digital, don’t we need something better to read it on than a laptop computer with the latest version of Acrobat?

I’ve yet to see any real interest in e-readers at the university I teach at. As far as I’m aware the library is not investing in them even at an experimental level. Of course, industry is. The dual screen tablet called the kno is deliberately targeting the student reader:

A digital textbook which allows the reader a simulation of analogue reading with the added value of digital tools.

I haven’t seen or used one and it’s success – apart from price – will be determined not so much, I suspect, by what you can do with it but by the experience of using it. How enjoyable can developers make screen reading that even now amongst my most techie-tethered students, is still seen as a chore … though not for the same reasons that reading paper and ink might be!