I attended the annual Booksellers Association conference earlier this week. There were a number of highlights including Richard Dawkins' attack on religion in his new book The God Delusion based on the TV series The Root of all Evil? Go buy the book when it comes out in the Autumn.

There were discussions on whether or not to print prices on books, whether or not the London Book Fair should be in Earl's Court or Docklands, whether all publishers should be buried alive for their iniquitous discount policies or just some of them, and so on.

The most important thing from my point of view related to the future of independent (and not so independent) bookselling in a digital environment.

Nobody doubts that the book has a future and that booksellers will continue to  find a decent market for fiction and popular non-fiction. However, some areas of publishing have already moved to a completely new distribution mechanism which eliminates the role of the traditional bookseller. The first movers were scientific and legal publishers, rapidly followed by business information providers. Schools business could be hugely affected by the BBC's plans for a digital curriculum. Right now reference books and travel guides are moving rapidly to a web-only model. Other areas of non-fiction, particularly high-level academic works, will follow.

One can certainly paint a picture of doom for the small book retailer. But I came away from the conference convinced otherwise. Provided publishers digitise their material and make it available to all at a price. Provided booksellers are willing to take risks and learn new skills. Provided that authors allow fast and effective re-use of their copyright works. I believe the small bookseller can build a profitable and growing business selling traditional books on the web and still serving their local community; building deeper communities of interest among readers; building digital delivery websites for text and audio books. The more book retailers enter this business the more we and our customers will all be protected from the dangers of monopolistic or oligopolistic distribution channels.

In Britain and Ireland we are hugely fortunate in having an organisation which can facilitate this future and who have proved its worth time and time again. Now the BA needs to encourage all its members to seek advice in order to harness the potential of these powerful new digitalia (as a colleague calls it).