By Lindsey Deiter

For years now, the technological world has been challenging the financial success of many newspapers, magazines, bookstores and even record labels. Just a few weeks ago, Lawrence’s major franchise bookstore Borders announced it is going out of business. The Internet places endless information just a few moments of feverish typing away, and we can get the news, read books and download music all online.

Local bookstore owner Heidi Raak says Borders closing down is a harbinger of what’s to come in the book business. Raak, who has managed The Raven Bookstore, 6 E. 7th St., since 2008, cites online bookstores like Amazon and eReaders like Kindle as new competitors for bookstores of all sizes. But she has faith for the future of small stores like hers. “I hope small bookstores like this are able to survive, because I think there will always be an artifact that is the book,” Raak says. It’s a belief that some people will always prefer turning the pages of a book to scrolling through it on a bright computer screen.

Michael Bednar’s article on vinyl records and their increased popularity makes a similar point about the physical connection that people make with intangible things like music and language. Both can be only be truly sensed through sound and the mind’s perception of it, but when an album is cut into vinyl, or when stories are put on paper, music and stories attain a physical existence. It becomes a physical experience, a sensual relationship. Vinyl’s resurgence as a popular listening format may just be a fad, but it also may be a lasting experience that will always attract a certain type of music lover.

Shannon Jones, employee at the Dusty Bookshelf, 708 Massachusetts St., says that independent stores “have the freedom to change with their customers wants and change quickly,” and that’s what sets them apart from bigger stores like Borders. The Dusty Bookshelf has remained a buy-sell-trade business successfully through the emergence of e-books and iTunes downloads. There have been and presently are people who prefer actual books, or who buy vinyl music instead of CDs or mp3s. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that some folks always will.