Some anecdotes: I spent $30k on computer and electronic engineering books in the past 6 months. Yes really. A lot of them were those culled library books sold

Some anecdotes: I spent $30k on computer and electronic engineering books in the past 6 months. Yes really. A lot of them were those culled library books sold by wholesalers on Amazon and library benevolent foundations. There is still a long list of ISBNs (and some IBM/AT&T/standard body private publications) I'd pay a ton of money to buy but cannot because there is nowhere to buy them; the copies are not on any digital market place and/or have largely been destroyed. The issue is books have an inherent physical logistical problem. A city library has a relatively small demographic; the high hit rate books will be relatively easy to stock but getting the long tail right will be nearly impossible. I don't know the right solution to that, but something akin to the netflix DVD distribution model might be a better fit going forward for libraries. Most people can't afford to build a private library like I did. As for my own justification, I _love_ physical books. I much prefer it to reading on a screen or even epaper. It is a visceral context switch to go "offline" and stare at paper vs any digital system. There are other things that aren't necessarily apparent as well -- press printing a book is an expensive proposition. Therefore, getting the typesetting, copy editing, paper quality etc done right the first time is paramount. I just don't see that on most epublication. Even press printings that are sent for epublishing more often than not look completely haphazard in page layout.