For at least three years at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the international publishing industry's biggest annual event, up-and-coming firms have proclaimed the death of the printed word at the hand of digital technology.
The crash of the high-tech field on markets worldwide, however, and the dogged persistence of books to capture audiences have since thrown cold water on many of those boasts.
And yet, despite the sobering burst of the cyber-bubble, the Internet and digital technology have muscled their way into the publishing industry in the last several months in ways that may be less spectacular than their initial hype, but more lasting.
Perhaps the most heralded, and least successful, new product of the publishing industry has been the eBook, a hand-held device with electronic text that carries what its manufacturers call distinct advantages over paper-and-ink books.
These include their ability to hold a number of volumes in one fairly lightweight unit, meaning avid readers do not have to break their backs on vacations or business trips.
The latest model presented in Frankfurt by US company Gemstar EBook also offers color screens at a retail price of 649 euros (about US$584), making digital magazine and newspaper subscriptions more attractive.
Yet EBooks have persistently failed to catch the public imagination since their launch with great fanfare in 1998. Many trial users have complained about the relative eye strain of reading a screen, and their expense.
The president of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, Roland Ulmer, made a number of comments at the beginning of the fair.
Ulmer said he believed the book would remain on the market for years to come, but that successful companies must begin to view texts as content not only for print media but for a range of outlets including CD-ROMs, books-on-tape, databases and Internet sites.
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