Bryan Alexander writes in with this report from Sir Harold Evans keynote yesterday evening…

Is Bookzilla a dinosaur, an extinct species rolling over in his grave, praying for his footnote in the history of communication?

The Sir Harold Evans event at the Chapel in Agnes Scott’s Presser Hall had the feel of old home week, or whatever it’s called when the mothers and fathers and grandfolks of yore come together to reminisce. First there was this old guy (not Sir Harold) in the college’s parking deck who had a most dense and drooping handlebar mustache. Then we parked next to a little car that was covered with mossy green mildew, and had apparently died there in the parking garage so long ago. (I kid you not that there were issues of the AJC from the Bush administration heaped in the passenger seat.) Finally, there was the audience: average age of 65. A woman was knitting in row 4. Everyone had arrived 20 minutes early. Need I go on?

No, no, I like old . . . books. And Sir Harold is one of them. They’re polite and they’re also feisty. And they remember back when things were done a different way, and they warn us real good that a lot of the stuff they liked to do had great value. We had better not screw up and forget it.

Newspapers were great, he said. Foreign reporting was great. Investigative journalism was great. Reading about things you didn’t realize interested you was great. Never forget it. That’s feisty.

Who was responsible for getting rid of these things? Which generation?

Bottom line for Sir Harold is that it’s so important to preserve high quality newspapers that he’s willing to advocate the use of digital technology to make it possible, namely, through print-on-demand. You will have a high-quality printer in your home that will print the newspaper when you want it. This has the feel of placing one’s finger in that crumbling dyke with the hope of preventing the flood. He himself reads books on a Kindle.