Today the death of books, and the consequent death of libraries, is predicted with equal solemnity. Do you read fiction? Then, once again, the jostling scrum of competing screen-based media is cited as the grim reaper. Do your tastes run to manuals and reference books? Then the welter of on-line and disk-based information available from your computer will expunge that market also. Desperate to appear "modern", the Government cites computers, the Net, and e-mail at every opportunity. Luckily, it also encourages reading and literacy in other forms. For by the Government's own trade figures, sales of books of all kinds grew from £1.6 billion to £1.85 billion between 1996 and 1997. That, thinks the market research company Book Marketing Ltd, suggests more than mere cover price rises - after all, there is a price war going on in parts of this sector. More real books are being sold, and this is happening at exactly the same time as a massive increase in computer ownership and cable/satellite channel access.

Likewise the 1990s habit known as "scratching" - people of power and influence sending flattering little hand-written notes to each other - has gone hand-in-hand with the burgeoning popularity of the e-mail. Just recently Tony Blair "scratched" the entire community of Northern Ireland with his hand-written referendum campaign posters. Sounds familiar? Refer back to cinemas, theme parks, musicians, producers, etc: once again, somehow technology highlights the parallel merits of Lo-Tech, and modernising Tony resorts to the blue ballpoint.

To be honest, I'm slightly puzzled by this. When Caxton invented the printing press, there was, so far as I am aware, no flourishing market in hand-copied manuscripts as a result. Today, in contrast, those newspapers with the best Internet editions seem to show scarcely any drop in sales of the printed versions. Perhaps it is simply too soon to tell. But ever since the First World War, and certainly since Hiroshima, technological progress for its own sake has lost its lustre. Even medicine, where astonishing advances have been made for the good of humanity, today stands accused of misusing and thus reducing the efficacy of wonder products such as antibiotics, and "alternative" medicine has become mainstream. Today we can choose the best of the new, but that does not necessarily mean we reject all that already exists. There is just too much of it to do that.

There is to be a zone within the Millennium Dome called UK@Now. This is worrying, but only a little. For the Dome belies its appearance. Stupendous and elegant though it most certainly is, it is not especially high-tech. It is a very large Big Top, inside which will be an old-fashioned, World's Fair type of exhibition, some of which may well be rather quaint. It is interesting that some of the Dome-knockers say it will be a flop because of the rival lures of cable, satellite, computers, all the usual suspects. Recent history suggests otherwise. Those queuing for an hour for the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers might also venture to disagree. The Dome may prove to be the Millennial apotheosis of Lo-Tech.