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Books can be, for some, a status symbol. Guests peruse your carefully-arranged bookshelves to gauge your reading habits or to get a lead on another title. Decoration is often the goal when choosing a coffee-table book or allocating shelf-space for classics that haven't been read in decades.
But books are also a 'throw-away' commodity. Unless you collect genre or certain authors out of habit, most paperbacks are passed along to friends or thrown in the swap bin at libraries. Many paperbacks aren't bound well enough to survive many years with repeated reading.
Space is also an issue, as @ficbot says. I have bookshelves in the basement with hundreds of books, many of them out of date and of little value to anyone, yet they get boxed and moved when I do. How nice to have 2,000 books on my Kindle, even if I'll never live long enough to re-read any of them ....
The brick and mortar stores will 'sort out.' Of what value are they any more? I get my reading lists from the 'net and friends. I can view covers online, as if that is important in making a selection. I can purchase titles instantly. I avoid lines at checkout stations and the comments of clerks who always seem to want me to know they've read more books than I have because they work in a bookstore.
I wonder if the small, local bookseller might still survive if they can find a way to cater to the serious reader -- provide atmosphere for discussion groups and knowledgeable, non-condescending staff who can lead readers to new authors...I believe 'value added' is the operative terminology. Personal service is highly valued, and a personal relationship with the proprietor brings return business. The real question is how to give the bookseller a piece of the pie that they deserve.
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