The more we move ahead, the more we will need books. It is wrong to think that books will be sidelined after the emergence of new means of communication; books will gain increasing importance in human communities. The best new communication technologies can do is facilitate availability of books and conveying the content of books. Nothing will replace books.
One point is that if we are after increasing cooperation among our people in terms of thought, experience and artistic talent, we should increase our contact with books. A book is a collection of intellectual and artistic products, a collection of the knowledge of one or several people. We should truly appreciate the opportunity to use the intellectual products by different people and this is what books can give us. Therefore, books are a valuable phenomenon and a precious entity. This has always been the case and the future will be no different. Therefore, it is necessary to pay serious attention to books, particularly to reading books.
Ayatollah Khamenei, 07/20/2011
