Hipster Was Into Print Books, Libraries Before They Were Retro Cool

Bay area hipster Jeremy Potter, 23, claims he has been going to the library for years and reading print materials way before anyone else.

"Man, I was all about going to the Hot Topic, then rolling to the 'brary for some Encyclopedia Brown when I was a kid," Potter said, "When I grew up I did all the Dickens, Shakespeare and Kaufka then everyone was reading them.  I went back to my roots, a little underground industry called graphic novels.  Then it was like everyone was getting them.  So now I've gone really underground, back to the roots, a little guy named Gutenberg, maybe you heard of him.  He made his own Bible."

"Yeah, everybody reads them, but I think they're cool.  I guess," said Potter.

Potter showed off his vintage collection of books he's been collecting for the last 10 years:

The shelf is of a bygone era.

"Yeah, the top shelf is all about the old school comics.  There's some Ultimate Spider-Man, Batman, Powers, Scott Pilgrim.  Yeah, I got the rabbit guarding those. (laughs)
Then the next shelf is all Dresden Files and Christopher Moore.  I don't really read them now that there are so many of them, but they look good with the decor.
Finally, there's just a hodge podge of stuff at the bottom.  Some Stephen King next to Dave Barry next to Wicked.  That's before they made that musical on Broadway, bee tee dub.  It was a book, man."

Potter claims he got a lot of the items from the used book sale at the public library.  The public library, a place many use to download ebooks, access wifi, and use public access computers, also collects print materials.  The print materials, once a popular medium, are being sold off wholesale as they become redundant to the digital formats now owned by the library.

"You can get some good sh** there," Potter says, "Sometimes I take some books back and trade them for older ones.  It was a groovy place till all the norms found out about it."

IKEA Sees Death of Print, Changes Bookshelves

Not IKEA, just a bookshelf

IKEA is changing the design of their BILLY bookshelf to incorporate deeper shelves and possibly glass doors for decorative item show space.  The LA Times sees this as IKEA noticing the changing of the times as ebooks become more popular than print materials.  Referencing the closing of Borders as well as reports by Amazon citing an increase in ebook purchases, they may have a point.

I can see this as true.  Look at your grandma's couch versus your own.  The weird vinyl thing with a dust cover was a decorative centerpiece and is far apart from the cushion-covered almost-bed that lives in most apartments I have been in that functions as a place to focus on the television and Xbox.  Even the desk had to open up to allow for computers and other devices to populate their surfaces.  Hell, my desk does not even have one of those pencil drawers.  Things gonna change, I guess, and it fits that the folks that fabricate most everything are the one's noticing first.