"You can't beat unplugged knowledge" "The book -- not the Intemet -- will prove to be the seminal invention of modern Civilisation" Let us assume the wizards had their way. In every corner of every home, office and school a Monitor glows, oozing from the Internet is all that mankind' could desire. Each house wife is plugged into the Library of Congress . Each five-year-old can summon relativity theory at the squeak of a mouse. Computer related shares reach record levels. Into the denim-walled offices of Internet mogul Bill Gates walks a Mr Caxton. He has, contrived a method of putting this material into portable form. His invention needs no lighted screen. It enables written words to be read with the naked eye and even fashioned into compact volumes to fit into a handbag. They are immune to viruses and do not crash Jet Planes, Caxton's contraption requires no Wires or Batteries or wall plugs. Third World countries can use it , Gates sees the Threat Instantly and shows Caxton the door. Had the book come after, not before, the screen, I lay money the pundits would have declared the Internet a passing and costly Fad , Out would go the dirty, eye-tiring Screens with their plugs and wires and inconvenient sockets and in their place woulb be Books, objects of beauty customised to the needs of the Mobile Leisure Classes. The Government would susidise School Ligraries and set up Book Shops on Steet Corners. Teachers would be retrained to read . Books , being cheap would liberate the Poor and be the Salvation of our Culture. Caxton would move to Malibu wear sneakers and top the Fortune 500. A recent British poliCy-studies report confirms what I long suspected. Beside every terminal lurks a furtive reader. The populatity of Books has rissen steadily over the First decade of the 'Information Revolution". A Revolution that was predicted to herald their demise. Book sales are up since 1989, as is real-terms spending on books, the latter by in exta ordinary 45 per cent. The number of Titles has almost doubled since 1987 giving the lie to the Publishers Lament that too many books are published. The percentage of the population buying 16 or more books in a year has risen from 28 percent to 30 per.. The public loves books and has thumbed their noses at the Much Hyped Revolution or at least regards it as having nopthing to do with Books. That revolution has already seen three of it's over-promoted innovations degenerate into small Niches . namelt (Ceefax/Prestel, Touch Screen and CD/Rom). A Civilisation declares itsel by it's Books, a House without books is a shelter but Not a Home . Children who do not read Novels may be trained but Not Educated. "Computer Literacy" is an Essential Tool for living ,like being able to handle Money, Law and Personal Relatioships , it has nothing to do with Literacy. Screens offer information retrieval and fun. But to substitute Computers for schoolbooks is a travesty . To suppos thet Cybernaughts from The World Wide Web are about to Zapp the Writers and Readers of Books as as co-sponsors 0f Western culeure (as dld the University of Californla's survey The Future of the Book) is ludlcrous. So great is the commercial hyperbole surrounding the Internet that commonsense is obliterated by dazzle. It has proved a boon for pornographers, Terrorists and lawyers and for the sort of upmarket pen pals who used to rave about citizens' band radio. The Internet is one more electronic craze that market forces will sooner or later put in its proper context. For the time being, its fanatical proponents need the sympathy and tolerance once extended to Esperantists and radio hams. In the history Of science, I would place the Internet well behind the word processor, the telephone and the light bulb. What is absurd is for screen communication to require for its self-esteem the ridiculing of books. Highly, paid seminar addicts such as Massachasusetts Institute of Technology's Nicholas Negroponte deride the Book for having to be taken down from a Shelf and "Asseced" One person at a time. The decostrucionists proclaim that the closed book is dead. The advent of digital pictures on the or liberate readers from the tyranny of artists. It is the freedom of the brain-dead. Thoreau famously warned against inventions as merely "improved means to an unimproved end". I accept that the goal of the written word is in part the dissemination of information. The Internet is an aid to this. Even here I do not believe it will seriously challenge the printed reference book With both Internet and books at my disposal, I make vastly more use of the latter. They are, as Caxton showed, simply more convenient than something p ugged into a wail and requiring constant energy. The surprise star of the policy-studies survey was books of the imagination. Fiction is still the biggest category of books bought. Novels have not been replaced by computer games or video nasties. The latest Archer, Francis or Grisham may not rank with Mllton's "precious lifeblood of a master spirit", but the vitality of literary publishing, poetry, plays and novels, defies the jeremiahs of the publishing industry. The. book is the seminal invention of modern civilisation. The history of communication since Gutenberg and Caxton testifies to its appeal. What arrived on the cultural landscape back in the 15th century has remained unchallenged, certainly by anything that electronics can offer. To move a mountain, you must write a book. To found a religion ,or launch a political party, you must write a Book. To attack an enemy, support a friend, Tell a story, justify a career, you must write a book. Even if you wish to sneer at books, you must write a book. The Internet Will strut an hour upon the stage, and then take it's place in the ranks of lesser Media, if we must spend money on Culture, then Slash it on BOOKS. Story by Simon Jenkins from "The Times" thank you. Note added by Webmaster : Books will no Doubt be around ,Just like the Written Word etched in Stone of the Past, for all time .The Stationmaster R.S. ................