Just as surely as photo engraving spelled the end of hot lead typesetting, the era of books as the primary tool of learning is passing. Roll over Gutenburg, and tell Merriam Webster the news.

For several centuries after the invention of printing, Bibles were the primary product of the new technology. The French Revolution coincided with the publication of the Marqi de Sade’s erotic memoirs, resulting in a huge leap in literacy among the newly egalitarian neo-Napoleonic masses throughout Europe. This in turn triggered the so-called Age of Enlightenment, during which newly discovered truths about our world were published and eagerly read by an information-starved public. Even into the last century most books sought to teach some sort of lesson, including the newly popular trashy romance novels with their moral themes.

With the advent of newspaper journalism, the public craving for information became obsessive, with most cities claiming three or more local garbage wrappers for public perusal.

In the groves of academia, books became more then a basic tool for conveying knowledge. They soon became the coin of success for professors who wrote and re-wrote their class texts, assuring themselves and their university press a steady income from student purchases of their class texts. Textbook publishers profiteered from the public schools movement, printing and binding for big bucks on long-term, high-dollar contracts with local and state boards of education, resulting today in serious concerns that the backpack load for kids at school is running around 20 pounds and causing health problems.

Now comes Gov. Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger to suggest that the state’s $24 billion budget shortfall might be helped if the state quit buying books for math and science courses, and perhaps other subjects later if the first experiments work. Teaching courses online would not only allow for updating of the material as new discoveries are made, but save tens of millions in inflated printing costs. One estimate claims that each book costs the state $100 by the time it reaches a student, by which time it will be outdated.

The computer age promised a "paperless office," which has failed to materialize, but the prospect of reducing the tons of books that clog our libraries, thrift stores and quarter-bins outside the few remaining bookstores offers hope.

With modern technology anyone can not only write their own novel, but edit and publish it, online or through vanity presses. The question is why waste the paper?