ICLE has seen a fairly steady decline in the purchase of print books. Some of this decline is probably attributable to our rich online resources. ICLE’s books began going online in 2005, and other online resources like the ICLE Formbank and How-to Kits were offered even earlier. Demand and use of the ICLE online resources has steadily grown. In fact, over 9,000 Michigan lawyers use them every year.
With the advent of e-readers and e-books around 2007, many predicted that all print books would become curiosities that only eccentrics would use—like the lawyer in a Star Trek episode who preferred his room full of books over the computer in the corner. The inevitable death of the print book, however, is now being questioned. For example, see the New York Times article from September 2015, “The Plot Twist: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead.” E-book sales have flattened at around 20 percent of the book market, and independent bookstores selling print books are coming back stronger. In fact, Amazon opened a brick and mortar bookstore in Seattle, and there is lots of speculation that the big online giant may open many more.
The ups and downs of retail bookstores have not impacted ICLE much. The downward slope of ICLE print book purchases has remained fairly steady throughout all this. We are committed, however, to providing ICLE books in print as long as we can. This is the challenge for an entirely self-funded nonprofit: lower demand has increased print cost (it costs more to print fewer books) and also decreased print revenue. You may have noticed some of the steps we have taken to ensure that we can continue to provide books in print as long as we can, such as moving books from an expensive three-ring binder to more cost-effective paperback. Because even if, like Captain Kirk says, a computer takes less space, we recognize some lawyers still like a good book in print.