Tuesday, November 13, 2007

WHAT'S THE POINT?

Borders bookstore chain is installing televisions. The bookstore chain has partnered with Ripple, a national provider of in-store content to deliver information to "upper class" customers. Ripple also delivers content to such chic businesses as Jiffy-Lube and Jack-in-The-Box.

I don't know about the majority of the readers of this blog, but I'm old-fashioned. When I go to a bookstore, I expect to find books and periodicals. I like bookstores because I can escape the yak-yak of television. Bookstores are supposed to help people think not leave them hanging with their mouths wide open and drooling like eejits on the carpet. Or have I missed some crucial lesson in modern publishing?

Once upon a time, books were actually conveyors of knowledge not units to move out the door. When I was a child, too many years ago, I fell absolutely in love with the warm pencil colours of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. The sweet face of Aphrodite arising from the sea or the poignant reunion of Demeter and Persephone in the grain fields kicked a hole in my tidy go-to-churchy view of life. My world was suddenly aflame with ideas. Books aren't meant to be a marketing tool alongside television. Books are intended to open up new venues for the mind to explore.

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