(Video APTN)

The world of publishing is in the midst of a divisive revolution.

As e-books take off, will there be room for the printed word in future?

Books for sale outside the Frankfurt Book Fair.

But will this soon be a thing of the past?

During the five day exhibition, publishers and the public are being bombarded with all the latest electronic devices for reading books - devices which are challenging the book industry worldwide.

One of the leading electronics companies exhibiting at the show is the Chinese company Hanwang Technology Co. Ltd.

They produce the Hanvon E-Book Reader N516. It weighs under 165g and has a paper like display produced using E-ink technology, which enables clear reading under direct sunlight and causes no damage to the eye, according to the company.

The Chinese device has a capacity of 2 GB space and is able to support up to 8 GB.

Digitalization makes it possible to read novels on mobile phones. Travel guides can be studied on portable reading devices, and movies can be watched on a smart phone.

One British device on show here is the COOL ER, invented by Interhead.

It uses E-Ink too, which replicates the experience of reading a book, according to the company.

It uses power only for page turns, which means that a single charge lasts for 8000 pages. Readers can also change the text size.

Christian Hasiewicz, the digitalization expert and library director of DiviBib, a virtual library and german media provider, says "Yes, I think that the electronic book reader will change the reading habits of many people. I am convinced that, if the devices are attractive and cheap, many people will be ready to read digital books. Certainly this depends very much on the content that is offered."

The Cybook Opus is an electronic reader by the French company, Bookeen, which is another E-ink reader with a 5" display and is capable of showing up to 12 different font sizes. It also has a 4-level grayscale and 200 dpi resolution.

It can change automatically from portrait to landscape formats (and vice versa), depending on how the readers prop it up.

Ronald Schild, CEO of MVB, the Marketing and Publisher Service of the German Booksellers and Publishers Association, says "I would characterise digitalization with the keyword (Johannes) Gutenberg 2.0, which means that digitalization will revolutionize reading. The way we read will change completely. The devices and the formats will change. But also the interaction between reader, publisher and writer, as well as readers among each other will be made possible through the digital reading. And it will change the way we receive texts completely", says Ronald Schild, CEO of MVB, the Marketing and Publisher Service of the German Booksellers and Publishers Association.

Austrian company Blackbetty Mobilemedia GmbH specialises in mobile content distribution and offers the possibility of downloading electronic books and any other digital content.

On display here is an alternative to a classic bookshop, the Blackbetty Mobilemedia Terminal, a so-called readers-filling-station.

Karsten Sturm, Business Developer at Blackbetty Mobilemedia GmbH, also expects reading patterns to change in the future.

In 2008, U.S. e-book sales totalled $113 million - up 68 percent from 2007 but still a fraction of the estimated $24.3 billion spent on all books, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Sony's eBook Store includes more than 100,000 books, as well as a million free public-domain books available from Google.

The Kindle Store currently has more than 330,000 available titles and can only download books from Amazon's store, while Sony's Readers can display texts sold in the "epub" format - an open standard supported by the International Digital Publishing Forum that numerous publishers use to make e-books.

Amazon is to offer the Kindle as a retail export to 100 nations outside the USA from next week, but it can only load books in English.

Brigitta Leisse, owner of the "Internationale Buchhandlung" bookstore in Frankfurt has a different view on electronic reader devices.

She says " We don't have any e-books on sale and I will try to get information on the (book) fair. I know that a lot of advertising and marketing is made, but I was never asked by anyone (any client) about e-books. I can't tell you, if this will change the book industry. I personally would not use an e-book. I love the (printed) book so much, I like to hold it in my hands, I like to read and I like to feel the book", she said.

And Leisse gets support from one of her clients:

"The only thing I can imagine this would be useful for, would be for scientific work. Then I could imagine to download some content with the e-book and to work with it while being away on business. But in terms of fiction, poetry et cetera I would definitely prefer the (printed) book, because I prefer the habit element very much. And the nice layout of the book", says Andre Sadowsky right after buying some new books.

This year's book fair opened to the industry on 14 October.

The public were able to view what's on show over the weekend.

More than 6,900 exhibitors from 100 countries were on hand, down from the nearly 7,450 in 2008, a reminder of the financial crisis that has wracked not only publishing, but industries worldwide.