I am 51 years old and a retired bookseller,I was 25 years in the business. I am a former director of the Canadian Booksellers Association and I have been a contributor to Canadian Bookseller magazine for over ten years, writing about the retail book industry. I write a regular monthly column for it titled "Reading Ahead" which deals with the effects of emerging technologies on the book trade. I am now freelance writer, living in Northern Saskatchewan.
I have been a life-long student. I returned to high school at the age of thirty to take computer science and French. I remained at high school for ten years taking subjects that were either not available or not of interest to me when I was a teenager. I also took correspondence courses from the University of Waterloo in the area of Classical Studies towards a BA. I have been a freelance writer for the last five years.
I have been using the web for research and entertainment for about six years, almost since the creation of Netscape. I spend on an average, a hour a day surfing and five or six hours on the weekends at the local library surfing with their public access computers (my wife is the librarian).
I have been interested in electronic publishing since the advent of the computer age. I don't perceive it to be a detrement to the printed book but an enhancement. I think "print on demand" may be the salvation to the publishing industry and if bookstores can be innovative, they can prosper from this technology,whether they are "bricks & mortar" or in cyberspace.