An increasing number of people are using google to look for information instead of going to the library, and google might take over the position of the library in the future. However, to what extent can google do that? I agree that google turning books into e-books may reduce the number of people going to the library to look for information, but there would always be people who would prefer going to the library.
Even if google plans to digitise books, there are still notations which are not easy to express with the alphabet and numbers 0-9. We still need superscript, super-superscript (note that this is not a function of MS word), etc. to express math notations properly, and it is much more comfortable reading a math book than reading formulas and theories off the internet because half the time you are actually deciphering what the notation means.
People would also go to the library to find novels to read during leisure time. You seldom find people reading a google e-book on a bus or train, but only people with a novel in their hands. This is another area which google cannot take over as it is rather unconvenient to carry a laptop just to read a google book, and annoying too if your monitor goes blank when the computer runs out of power.
How effective would digital books be? If google digitise 15 million English books, it can only cater to countries that use English as their core language, and most other countries would still require people to go to the library. Hence, it is unlikely that a googlary would take over the position of the library in the near future.
Therefore, it still takes time before google can be used to such an extent as there are still many limits to technology and doing thing the traditional way might always be easier.
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