Billy is a behemoth of the bookcase world. Designed by only the fourth employee for Ikea, 41 million have been sold since 1979. The factory where the bookcases are made knocks out 15 Billys a minute; 3.1 million a year.

Many households in the UK have one of these no-frills, building-block style bookcases nestled in a corner somewhere, which means there are a lot of books sitting on its simple shelves.

"Books were immensely prestigious," says Ms Geddes-Brown. "Not only did they show how very learned you were - you could read - but they were also very expensive. At one throw, you proved your intellectual and monetary value."

Peter Sandico is a firm believer in books as an extension of the self. A book blogger, who is collecting photos of readers' shelves in his "bookcase project", he says the magic of book display is the ease with which they can be manipulated to present a certain front.

"The books we choose to display in our bookcases say a lot as to how we want others to see us," says Mr Sandico. "People who want to appear to have serious or academic reading tastes display their classics, while keeping popular novels at the back of the bookcases."

Ann and I have traveled the world and visited many a great bookstore, but none, not even the Strand, can compare to Chamblin's, in Jacksonville, Florida. "Bookmine" is an apt title because it's the only bookstore I've ever gotten lost in-it's that big. You could literally fit anywhere from four to eight other used bookstores inside of it. (David Moles, can I get a "Hallelujah!"?)

Publishers sold 3.08 billion copies in 2008, down 1.5 percent from the 3.13 billion copies sold the previous year, according to Book Industry Trends 2009, an annual report that analyzes sales in the United States. Higher retail prices helped to lift net revenue just 1 percent, to $40.3 billion from $39.9 billion.

The numbers confirm a litany of dreary news that has emerged from the publishing industry since last fall, when booksellers began seeing significant declines in store traffic. The trend has not abated this year, as publishers have continued to report double-digit sales declines. Borders Group announced Tuesday that first-quarter sales dropped 12 percent.

Against this backdrop, publishers, authors, booksellers and librarians are gathering in New York for BookExpo America, the industry's annual convention, which runs through Sunday.

The show won't go on in Dallas. The Christian Book Expo, an innovative consumer-focused book show, won’t be repeated next year. The board of Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, show sponsor, decided not to stage another event in 2010. Attendance at this year's show, held March 20-22 at the Dallas Convention Center, was 1,500; organizers had hoped for 10,000 to 15,000. The show left the organization with a $250,000 shortfall, according to ECPA president and CEO Mark Kuyper. "We want to clean up the debt before we consider future options," Kuyper told PW in an e-mail.

Bookstore sales, which were bolstered somewhat in January by back-to-school buying at college stores, declined 10.8% in February, to $1.02 billion. Sales for the full retail sector fell 11.5% in the month. For the first two months of 2009, bookstore sales were down 3.2%, to $3.32 billion. Sales for all of retail tumbled 9.9%.

1. The popularity of e-books will increase, with titles formatted for Amazon's Kindle leading the way. Content for the Sony Reader will sell faster than ever, but by this time next year, Kindle-compatible books will be outselling them by more than 2 to 1. And Palm, which has historically been the bestselling format, will have had its best year-on-year increase as well. Powells.com, which offers the largest selection of titles in formats that are not in closed distribution (a total of 150,000 in Adobe, Microsoft and Palm so far) will also have a record year for e-book sales. By year end, nearly every straight-text title published with commercial intent will be available for Kindle; the trick for the other formats will be to make sure they're included, too. And Kindle pricing will drive the market. But despite the fast growth, e-books will still make up a tiny share of the market—no more than 2% of sales for most titles—and will contribute only a minimal amount to publishers' bottom lines.

2. Sales of books in electronic form to public libraries will continue to grow: Ingram's MyiLibrary, Follett, NetLibrary and Overdrive are already deep into this business. This opportunity will present a challenge as publishers discover that some older contracts don’t give them the right to make that kind of sale.

"This is the most challenging economic environment that any of us has ever experienced," Makinson said, and he acknowledged the grim situations occurring at many of Penguin's competitors, including layoffs, and freezes on hiring, pensions and new book acquisitions. He was hopeful that holding off on pay increases for the next year would help Penguin avoid those drastic measures. However, Makinson said, "I cannot of course guarantee that there will be no job losses in Penguin in 2009. In this financial climate that would be plain foolhardy." Makinson did not propose a recruitment freeze but said Penguin will not be hiring "unless it is absolutely essential." The restriction on pay raises will apply to every Pearson operating company.

There were some positive remarks as well. "We are a strong and successful company, and right now we're the envy of the industry," he said. "I continue to believe that we'll have every reason to take pride in our achievements when we announce our 2008 results next March." Makinson advised employees to "expect, and plan for, the unexpected in 2009 and possibly beyond."

Company CEO George Jones said that after completing a thorough review of its options, the company determined it was best "to remain as we are," adding that he was "quite pleased" that the review is over and that Borders will remain an independent, publicly-traded company. The company still has the option to sell its Paperchase division to Pershing Square Capital, Borders's largest shareholder, for $65 million. That option expires Jan. 15. The company said it is talking to Pershing about different financing arrangements.

Similar to its competitors, Borders blamed a lack of customer traffic for the decline in sales, noting that the drop was most significant in September and October. Jones said the higher decline in comp stores compared to its competitors was due in part to its aggressive inventory reduction program which he acknowledged cost some sales. Jones said the decision to prune slow moving titles from Borders's store shelves was the right one, although he acknowledged the program "was not perfect." The company is starting to "fine tune" its inventory program and may return some books to stores, Jones said. According to Jones Borders is "well stocked" for the holidays. "It's a tough retail environment, but we feel we'll get our share of sales," Jones said.

An assembly of Catholic bishops on Monday called for the use of mass communications -- including television, cinema, DVDs and even iPods -- to be used to spread the Bible in as many languages as possible.

The nod toward technology is not unusual: The Vatican had one of Europe's first Web sites, for example, and has always been quick to adopt new technologies. The bishops' conference said that the stakes are higher than ever, arguing that the written word was insufficient for the modern world.

"The voice of the Divine Word must resonate over the radio, on Internet channels with virtual distribution (and by) CDs, DVDs and iPods, and on television and cinema screens," an official statement said.