At the second annual BAM Commencement forum, which was held on Saturday, Norman Boucher, the magazine's editor and publisher, moderated a panel discussion titled "Read a Book Lately? The Future of the Book in an Age of eReaders and iPads. The panel included publisher and editor Jonathan Karp ’86, who is executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster; literary agent Andrew Blauner ’86, who heads Blauner Books Literary Agency; and Newsweek and Daily Beast science reporter Casey Schwartz ’04, whose first book is scheduled to be published by HarperCollins next year.

So what do the panel members believe is the future of the book? Karp summed it up best when he pointed out that, with the technology of publishing now available to everyone, more books are published each year than ever. In fact, he said, the challenge for readers is finding the really good ones in this onslaught of printed matter. As for the eReaders and iPads, the panel agreed that by helping distribute books more broadly and easily, their effect over the long term is likely to be good for reading.

Watch a video of the discussion below.