Many of you are reading this column in the old-fashioned newspaper in its crinkly and foldable format. Others are reading this on a hard-edged inflexible digital device via the Internet.

Later, you might find your place in that new novel you're reading -- either the print edition or the version you downloaded to your e-book -- and pass a quiet hour.

It's a kind of schizophrenic world right now for reading. More and more, we are being faced with the prospect of abandoning the traditional ink-and-paper form in favor of the digital conduit of content, accompanied by the cries that "the age of print is over" and surveys that argue that fewer and fewer adults are reading "literature" -- novels, poems and plays.

The decline of the conventional newspaper and rise of news websites, blogs and other online services has been well documented, but since the introduction of Amazon's Kindle last year, the rush to market competing electronic readers has been picking up speed.

When Apple raised the stakes with the introduction of its iPad in January, the debate intensified. Its 9.7-inch screen displays more options than the $260 standard Kindle with a smaller screen. The iPad is $500.

Other names in the market include Barnes & Noble and Sony, so manufacturers are taking the future of these devices seriously.

Publishers are finally coming around to the realities of the digital book as well after a flurry last year of low-ball pricing by Amazon and other retailers on big-selling books.

Since then, many publishers established consistent policies for the electronic versions of their books. Plans are to hold the prices between $13 and $15.

A lot of that information can put you to sleep faster than another biography of Martin Van Buren. Here in the book department, the concerns with the e-book are about its effect on the nature of reading.

They are old concerns, growing out of the entrenchment of computers at work, school and home. Writer-teacher Sven Birkerts was troubled as far back as 1995 when he published "The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in the Electronic Age."

He was a pioneer of the ongoing debate that was heated up by the appearance of the digital reading devices lately.

In the latest round, Steve Wasserman, one-time newspaper book editor turned literary agent, suggested in an online essay that the real problem isn't how the book is delivered, but that serious reading itself is on the wane in America.

"Despite the claim that with the steady availability of personal digital devices, more people are reading more, the content and character of that reading are open to question," he claimed, citing an 8-year-old survey by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mr. Wasserman, however, omitted the most recent NEA study, "2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts," finding that adult reading has increased about 7 percent over three decades, including fiction.

In the other corner is former print book designer Craig Mod who, in his blog, welcomes the pending death of those inexpensive paperbacks people leave on airplanes or in beach trash cans.

In what is a long advertisement for the iPad, Mr. Mod embraces the digital platform for written works without graphics and continues to endorse the traditional print book as the place for graphics and words, "a sculpture for thoughts and ideas."

He makes an interesting point: As environmental concerns mount over the material used in print books, the digital reader is the "green" and, eventually, cheaper solution.

If this has piqued your interest, consider attending the rescheduled Future of the Book discussion April 1 in Room G-24 of the Cathedral of Learning, Oakland, at 8:30 p.m.

Mr. Birkerts and literary blogger Maud Newton are the panelists. The free program is presented by the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series of the University of Pittsburgh.

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