Travel Guides Buzz

A few days ago I saw something about Frommer's, (owned by Google), going digital except for their Disney guides.  I can't remember where, it may have been an Ingram or Baker & Taylor e-mail.  This is enough for Harry McCracken to herald the end of printed travel guides in Time Magazine, Print Travel Books Are Dead, and There's No Good Replacement

Now I see at The Guardian that Lonely Planet has been sold by its owner, the BBC, as Kevin Rushby reports in The death of the guidebook will open up new worlds .  It's worth reading the comments on this one for some interesting back and forth.  Some say that the Web does listings of restaurants & hotels better, but that e-book versions of travel guides leave a lot to be desired.

Still, it sounds to me like another groan of tectonic plates shifting in our print collection.  Fiction is bursting at the seams, but non-fiction seems to be withering away in very definite areas.  Still thriving vigorously in print:  cookery and knitting!