All recent predictions on the next adventure of the missing libraries as a result of the digital publishing revolution - with the advent of the iPad, eBook reader and company - they should at least diminish in the face to a statistic cited by Giuseppe Laterza in a speech on the topic: the European digital market affects only one percent of books sold. "The replacement of the paper book with the eBook before Christmas gave many for certain and there was not only imminent but it is far from even the horizon, "writes the site of the publishing house Laterza. "This is not the first time that the technological determinism comes up against the facts." Epper about the future of libraries (and their role in a landscape that is changing) is still topical, if only to be prepared for when the market share of digital - predictably - it will expand with the increased use media and reading eBooks on increased sales. It will take time, of course, and practice hours in predictions about the timing and mode may lead to readings tranchant such as Mike Shatzkin, who last week in Milan (part of the international conference titled "If book then") stated that, in a short time, the booksellers are designed to literally disappear. "We have seen that Kindle owners buy more than three times what they would buy in a bookstore. In America, the process has already begun, small bookshops have closed, and soon will be up to others. United States today there are about 1300 large bookshop, in 5 years will be 600, in ten years will be reduced to a hundred. " Apart from the necessary incantations that booksellers have made reading these considerations, it is surprising to a safety course so straightforward, simple, inescapable of things. But some libraries have already raised more felt the problem of how to deal with market changes - such as focusing on a strong identity, improving service delivery to the customer, opening the media, the diversification of supply. "The independent booksellers," wrote Francis Catalucci for example in a book published recently, "What will happen to books?" (At night), "will emphasize even more their identity, to be unbeatable on the services offered to customers and, above all, devote part of their performance at training: identifying best potential customers, attracting library (with presentations and other initiatives) for those looking for books to improve their professionalism. " Even booksellers Sardinians wonder about the future. The literary agent Patrick Zurru example emphasizes that "it is claimed that the first digital publishing in Italy will spend several years waiting for the libraries are already organizing. For example, studying the method to enter the digital market, with the objective to manage the sale of the eBook, as a service to the customer. Then the librarian should be careful to monitor the market, trying to always have the hard copy of what you sell more in the digital age: he who wants to give a copy of a book he has read it will still be with paper. In any case, the fear of death, the library seems to me exaggerated. " "I work in a bookstore for 25 years and heard this speech 25 years," says Luciana instead Uda, president of the independent booksellers of Sardinia. "Maybe now there will be accelerated, but I think it will take another generation before there are any significant changes. Surely then the strength of independent bookstores is the ability to become a meeting place, meeting and meetings - for example, the authors - as well as a meeting place for children, with initiatives related to animation and reading. " According to Aldo Addis - Vice President of the National Italian booksellers - the point is not so much as the libraries will survive, but why. "I think the librarian should just continue to do its job and do it better and better. Not like those booksellers who play their role as those who take a book from the shelf to give to the customer, and maybe not even that. More and more booksellers will emerge those who have interpreted their work as that of those that bring together writers, readers, who wants to listen. Technology paradoxically increases the desire for a physical place where you meet other people, you talk, you choose physical books, it brings together writers and readers. This will not fail. " Andrea Tramonte, Unione Sarda
