Web publishing doesn’t approach the image quality of a good coffee-table art book, and won’t for a number of years yet. Until that time, don’t look for art books to disappear.
Nah, I just had a need for some data on a couple old floppies a while back, so I stuck an equally-old drive in there. (This thing is nearly as old as I am and uses a card edge interface instead of pins.) I just haven’t gotten it around to taking it out yet. I probably will next time I have to open the case.
I’ve also got things like UHF/VHF combiners and discrete inputs (from a very old VCR my parents had), a 100 MB Zip drive, and a lot of software from the 1980s.
One thing that truly surprises me from reading this thread is the number of people who write in their books - I don’t even like marking up textbooks. I’ve, on occasion, acquired a used book that had notes in the margins and while I don’t suppose the previous owner had any thought that someone else might end up with their property, defacing a book like that kind of amazes me.
Not really any of my damn business if you scribble all over your books, I’m just not used to it is all.
Usually, the only footnotes I’ll add to a text are translations. (So I don’t have to take the time to work it out again on rereading.)
I’ve learned that most other footnotes become annoying later, even if it seemed important at the time. For example, my copy of Joyce’s Ulysses has an asterisk by this line:
The footnote? “Irish Stew in the name of the Law!”
That’s what happens when you spend Bloomsday in the pub with the book. :smack:
That might be fair with illustrated texts, but you’re discounting the CTRL+F function on a long webpage or e-book. Much, much, much faster than flipping if you can remember even a snippet of text.
I don’t believe E-Readers will ever take over books simply because they’re not as cheap as a book and not as easy as a book. They might appeal to some folks, but many people just prefer the feel of a good book in their hands. I’d rather read a real book than an E-Book.
That said though, the Readius is an interesting new device. A portable, flexible display that uses E Ink. Its resolution isn’t terrific at the moment (320x240 QVGA) and its latency rate is absurdly slow (as much as a second), but given the incredibly low-power advantages of E Ink, it’s a pretty slick device that, if cheap enough, could even be a better alternative to Sony’s E-Reader.
What if you can vaguely recall what the event was, but not the specific words? Searching is useless in that case, and repeatedly clicking is far slower than flipping through.
Wow, I’m suprised there are people who would rather read e-books than the real thing. Truly :eek:
I’m a die hard bookworm and can’t imagine a world without real books. For me, reading isn’t just about the story. It’s an experience. A calming, down to earth luxery. There’s nothing in the world like ending a long day relaxing in bed with a great book. Somehow curling up with a piece of hardware and reading an LCD screen just doesn’t have the same charm. And what the hell would I put on my bookshelves? :dubious:
The best way I can explain how I feel about it is to compare books to food. Hypothetically speaking, I could live on crappy T.V. dinners, but where would the joy be in that?
e-books=crappy T.V. dinners
Real books=a good stick-to-your-ribs home cooked meal.
If you have attention to spare for anything but the book, you’re not reading a very good book. I.e., format doesn’t matter, content does.
My family still likes to tell of the time I was so engrossed in a book that I didn’t notice that the TV set shorted out and the room was filled with acrid smoke.
Now THAT was good read. And it would have been a good read in ebook format, too.
Stillwell, the main draw is (and I may have said this before) that I have over 600 books with me at all times. If I’m sitting in the break room and suddenly remember that the Aubrey-Maturin book 11 (Reversal of Medal) is not my favorite and that I’m actually in the mood for Nine Princes in Amber, I tap the screen a couple of times and <poof>, I’ve got it.
Sometimes I’d rather have a book (like sitting around the house in an easy chair or whatever), but like so many other new things once you get used to reading a PDA it’s really much more convenient for casual reading. I like to read way too much to limit myself to just one or two books at work or one in the car or whatever. The content of the book is what I’m interested in, not fondling pressed tree pulp.
Universal Display Corp is working on FOLED and other OLED tech that could well result in something like they showed in Firefly that one time.
Books don’t have a format, in the electronic sense. Try using a 1980s stored data computer format, and you’re going to have trouble, a mere twenty years later. But you can pick up a 500 year old manuscript and simply start reading it. You don’t even need to buy a gizmo. Books is futureproof, they is.
If people read books in the future, rather than in the present, that might be an issue.
Must there be a winner? I have an iPod and a CD player. I use them under different circumstances. Before I jumped back on the net tonight I was reading in the bathtub, which I’ll never, ever do with an e-book. On the other hand, when I’m driving I enjoy audio books and would like a device that I could plug into my cigarette lighter that had an electronic book with an audio converter so that I could listen to printed text, but at about double the speed of a normal audio book. Since I’m about to go to the ophthalmologist due to eye strain from all the computer work I’ve been doing in the last few months, I’m very aware of the need for alternative media.
The audio cassette was invented in 1962, by Phillips Electronics of the Netherlands.
The Digital Compact Disc was invented 3 years later, in 1965, by James T Russell in Washington state.
Audio cassette sales peaked in 1989, 24 years later. (In western nations. In other countries like India, Saudi Arabia, etc., they haven’t peaked yet – cassette sales still exceed CD sales.)
So you’re saying that two and a half decades after a decent e-reader is invented, paper books will die out?
Business Week wrote of the paperless office in 1975. Now, 32 years later, I’ve worked in a lot of them – none paperless.
I don’t tap screens. I head for the bookshelves.
I look for a book on the shelves of our house. Maybe today, I’ll read (yet again) a favorite from my beat-up copy of the collected works of Shakespeare. I can’t decide; I flip back and forth between King Lear and Macbeth. No, too sad. Maybe this Van Morrison biography that looks almost new. Some interesting photos. Or here’s Beyer on handicapping horse racing, unless the colorful spine of Dawidowitz’ book on handicapping skills attracts me first. In which did I put the better margin notes? Better look at them both.
Can the pleasure I found as a child in an old Winnie the Pooh book, with its creamy pseudo-vellum pages with deckle edges, be found in a cold e-reader that runs on batteries? What about this one, featuring glossy photos of art treasures from the Smithsonian? Or this old Paul Gallico novel–look, it’s personally inscribed by the author. Not to me, but to somebody who owned the book before I did.
The books on my shelf are colorful and inviting and often stories in themselves. They’re not just file names on a screen. They are memories, pleasures, to be held in the hands and enjoyed; by the light of the sun, a lamp, a candle. They are friends. As long as I have eyes to see and light to read by, they will comfort and entertain me.
As the song says, “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” E-books have their place and time. But while that may be true, I honestly believe that as long as people enjoy the feel, the smell, the look, and the pace of real, printed, and bound books, such things will never give way to technology.
'Nuff said for now.
Spoons, I remind you that I disagree with the OP that paper will die (I still would prefer something a little more durable, but the physical book itself will be around for a good long while), but can only shake my head at people who are so hidebound that they are unwilling to try something new. I like, buy, and read hardcopy, and my kids and wife do, and we are a few years away from any device I’d want to place in the hands of a 4 year old, but if you honestly enjoy reading check out the electronic medium some time.
I notice that the primary resistance to ebooks seems to be nostalgic, and while I would certainly love the luxury of being at home with my books any time I feel the urge to read something, the fact is that I’m not. I have to work and go to doctors offices and wait for the meeting to be finished and a hundred other little things that allow me to grab a few minutes of reading since all those books are in my pocket.
If you’re just interested in caressing the physical without regard to the content, then ebooks aren’t for you, but the timeless words of A.A. Milne take me back to that endless summer of my youth regardless of the delivery system (except for audio, I can’t stand audio books).
And if that’s as incoherent as I suspect it is, I’ll say in my defense that it’s way past my bedtime.
Bobo, I think you and I are on the same page (pun fully intended). As you can tell, I love my physical books, and I won’t reiterate why–I think I’ve spelled it out clearly enough.
But as you may have noticed upthread, I’m also a part-time audiobook reader who uses the latest technology to record spoken-word books. Obviously, you’re not an audiobook listener–and that’s fine. They’re not for everybody. But many of the books and works I record are available and downloadable in text form from somewhere on the Internet (many of the ones I do, for example, are freely available from Project Gutenberg). But I’ve also read them ahead of time on my own, in paper form, and usually have a copy on my own shelf so I’m familiar with the work before I accept the task of trying to record it.
I don’t consider myself “hidebound,” and I certainly don’t eschew the technology. But I do put it to use for my own purposes. Honestly, I can’t stand the plain text look of Project Gutenberg pages. But rather than read from the works that are on my shelf, with the attendant sounds of a book’s page turning and the occupational hazard of deciphering differing type styles, sizes, and layouts, I download a Project Gutenberg work, reformat it in MSWord so that I can easily read it (the font I’m used to in a size I’m used to and no paragraph splits across a page, for example) and print a copy that I can confidently read from. I work with technology, in other words, not against it, to produce a good recording.
Obviously, to do as I’ve described, I’ve also had to check out the electronic medium, and I’ve found it lacking. But not everybody will find what I do, and as this thread demonstrates, there are those who seem to feel that paper books will die. Fine, but I disagree. Audiobooks are for those who cannot see well or who just want a good story as they drive to and from their jobs, or work out, or whatever. And I also find–and remember, this is just me–that e-texts just don’t feel right. Some find that they do. But I think there will always be a place for a bound book, no matter how much those who support technology would wish otherwise. Sure, it sounds hokey, but I don’t think a big old easy chair and a good book will give way to an e-reader anywhere, anytime soon.
Again, just my opinion. Hope this helps clarify matters.
This reminds me of the thread asking if futurology was dead. Every year we make predictions about future technology. It is mere guess work. People are capricious. They may or may not embrace electronic books. I worked for a start-up that was hoping they would. 6 million dollars and 7 years later the start-up is gone and books are not.
But that only tells us what is now. Personally, I am a technogeek and a huge reader - you would think I’d be the target market. But I will still buy my books.
I see some technologies that are coming that may help with E-readers.
Only time will tell, the rest of this is just words.
That’s one seriously well-preserved manuscript from someone with extraordinarily good handwriting, not to mention a very stable language. I would bet serious money that if I came across one of Shakespeare’s original works, I wouldn’t be able to do anything with it (in terms of the actual literature, that is).
But…I only read one book at a time. Jumping from one to another would be like channel surfing on the TV. Once I’m into a book I’m committed to the end. Also, my lifestyle doesn’t really allow for spontaneous reading. My usual reading time is 30 or 40 minutes before going to sleep each night. Whether I tote around one paperback or a hard drive crammed with 600 books I’m still not going to get a chance to read it until the day draws to an end.
Look I’m not against e-books. If there’s an audience for them (and judging by this thread there definitely is) then great, download and tap screens to your heart’s content. Just realize that not everyone is going to embrace it. The grocery shelves are full of frozen meatloaf dinners, but plenty of us still prefer the real thing. Let the two formats live a similar happy co-existance. 