Paper dictionaries dying out?

Japan's association of dictionary publishers is issuing an unusual-sounding plea to new high-school entrants this year--buy paper dictionaries. The reason is the ever-growing trend among students to opt solely for the electronic version, which assemble several volumes in one device. (Our current favourite, the Sony DD-IC700S [pictured right], assembles 21 dictionaries in a footprint marginally bigger than a business card.)

Japanese might just be the language most suited to electronic dictionaries; the multiplicity of obscure readings particularly for proper nouns can make it flatly impossible to guess a word's pronunciation even if one knows how to read its constituent characters. Hence, the need for dictionaries that enable you to quickly look up and cross-reference words.

We assume that dictionary publishers get a licensing fee or somesuch from electronic dictionary makers, but apparently paper volumes are still the industry's bread and butter. Another example of an ongoing shift in emphasis away from format (physical media such as CDs, books and magazines) and toward the content itself?

[Via the Nikkei Shimbun]