Academic Books and Dinosaurs

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Pauline Dewan's recent article "Are books becoming extinct in academic libraries?" looks at the rise of e-books and its impact on academic libraries.  Reading the article made me think back to my own college days.  Spending hundreds of dollars on really heavy textbooks, only to barely read 50 pages in each, then return them to the bookstore for about 1/6 of the price I paid for them. ::sigh:: My college self would have loved the opportunity to purchase electronic academic textbooks to be read on my lightweight e-reader.  While many college students today probably feel similarly, they shouldn't go canceling their Barnes and Noble rewards card just yet.  Academic textbooks have yet to reach the level of personal reading books in terms of their scope via electronic text.  What's more certain types of books like children's  and art books work better in tangible form. So it seems that, while academic books are definitely headed towards more electronic formatting, print books at least in some respect are here to stay........................................for now. :-)

What do you think? Are academic print books destined for extinction or do we still need them?

Reference

Dewan, P. (2012). Are books becoming extinct in academic libraries? New Library World, 113(1-2), 27-37. doi: 10.1108/03074801211199022