Advances in Book-Hauling Technologies

Gene's post on the likely failure of the Kindle within law schools was spot-on, unfortunately.  It seems that the most important technological advances relating to law books is in the devices to carry them.

When I began teaching seven years ago, I was surprised to find the students flooding into school dragging wheeled suitcases.  It looked like a flight attendant convention.  The functionality of those wheeled bags became clear, though, once I saw others staggering with gigantic and fully-laden backpacks.  The wheeled cubes were made possible by the development of rubber in-line skate wheels, which were eventually adapted for use with luggage.  Thus far, these skate wheels are probably the most successful technology we have relating to textbooks.

We provide lockers at school, but the students take nearly everything home with them to complete all of their reading.  Each one of these pack animals, I imagine, represents a failure of technology.  If not the Kindle, then what?  Is part of the problem our current expensive process of using large textbooks, only a fraction of which will sometimes be assigned for a given class?  It seems there must be a better way.

-- Mark Osler