E-Publishing

Not far from my home is an old bookstore called Givens books. I could spend hours in this store, mostly due to the musty scent of the place, and the long conversations with the store's owners about politics and the overall rudeness of teenagers these days. Every book in the store is haphazardly filed and stacked nearly to the rafters. How on earth the owners can produce a copy of anything within seconds of request is beyond me, but they can and they do. I couldn't imagine never walking into that store again. I just feel a sense of loyalty when I walk into Givens or even Barnes and Noble. Sure, I'm paying top dollar at the latter store but I'm helping to produce royalties for an author and I'm getting something I hope to love in return. If there were no more books, what would places like Givens do? So where does the Kindle or the I-Pad fit into all of this? Why do I feel compelled to hold pages and even smell them on my own shelves(this is weird, I know)? Articles like this one http://technorati.com/entertainment/article/seasoned-publisher-says-e-publishing-will/ say that I should e-publish my own book. Can I do this? Have you done this? If you have, do you sleep at night? I guess all in all I wonder, if we e-publish, are we hurting or helping the book industry? Does a book have to have pages made with paper to really be a book? What's your take on it?