Plato, The Timaeus
The advantages of printed books as a medium of information storage and exchange are that they are robust, they need zero power, several can be open at once, they have been around for 550 years, all literate people know how to use them, and they are readable in strong sunlight.
Their disadvantages are that illiterate people cannot use them, it is easier to print an electronic book than it is to digitize a printed book, and it is hard to collate non-sequential but related parts of one book, or many books by several subjects. Further, they do not talk, adapt to their readers, or have animated illustrations or music. They do not let readers zoom or pan illustrations, or increase or decrease their font size, nor do they recognize voice commands or visual cues. Finally, they are not cheap, long lasting, easily copied, quickly acquired, easily searched, or portable in bulk.
Paper will be with us for decades to come because of the hundreds of years of technological development behind simple, cheap, light, detachable pieces of paper, and the complementary use of hand and eye to arrange, read, or write them. It will be many decades before another piece of technology called virtual reality (not discussed in this report) eclipses paper. But because of their advantages to readers, libraries, educators, publishers, and retailers, in a decade electronic books will be a significant part of the market. About all that can be said of paper books is that they are lighter than clay tablets, less awkward than papyrus rolls, and cheaper than parchment codices.