Developing on some themes I’ve hit on in past threads.
On the heels of the Borders thread and this news that is characterized as a “gutting” of Barnes and Noble’s book-buying department, I’m getting more and more down about paper books and magazines.
Sure, it might become easier to get some of the more obscure titles as an e-book, and if I’m able to, that’d be swell. But bookstores and I have a good history. It’s the only store I regularly went into every time as a kid besides the toy store. I love just sitting down somewhere (outside my home, even) for a few hours. I like being able to just randomly come across something I never would’ve otherwise been interested in (much harder to do on a website). I like not having to pay through the nose for an Internet connection just so I can read stuff on the go. I like being able to buy used books. I love puzzles, and think that the few options for doing them on tablets and computers just isn’t the same.
What’ll happen now, I wonder? Will e-books grow out of being locked down and non-transferable? Will the catalog grow to make up for the lack of paper (if it gets me Paul Halter in English, I may be able to live with the trend)? Will the poor be able to “catch up” from not being able to get their news from a newsstand or a public store (neither of which require electronics or Internet access)?
Again, I know I’ve hit on stuff like this previously, but with both major bookstores (apparently) being hit hard, I wonder whether anything will fill in the gap IRL. (Okay, that and losing a $20 gift card to one of those places the day after Christmas has gotten me kinda down on the whole thing. :))
Reading paper books and magazines was one of my early and lasting loves.
Reading is still a primary recreation but I haven’t held a paper product for reading in the last few years.
The thing that worries me about the passing of paper is the hardware and and software endurance and compatibility. Just a couple of examples. My spouse cannot get MP3 audio books to work on the player in her new expensive car. Many movies from Netflix which have subtitles on the DVD will not show subtitles when streaming. Most TV programs which have CC on Dish Network do not have CC when view via the PC. etc. etc.
I won’t miss magazines. They just pile up and are outdated the moment they hit the shelves.
But physical books and bookstores I will certainly miss. I don’t even really want an e-reader, even though I can see some amount of usefulness in them. It’s a shame that, like a lot of other technology that is being pushed on us and which I have resisted using, it will soon enough be inescapable.
As soon as e-books become as good as real books (other than physicality) I’ll be on board. I certainly won’t miss all that extra shelf space! And the ability to just link to specific magazine articles rather than having to clip and file them will be nice. Really just waiting for universal standards and giving up of DRM, as happened with music. I’ll still have real books for things like my favorites, and big art or photo or collector books. But I could easily live with most of my books being in electronic form. I used to love going to the bookstore, but Borders especially has been losing it’s charm over the years and is a pale shell of what it used to be. And I think print-on-demand technology will become sufficiently advanced for those people that really want a physical copy of their ebook.
I suppose something was lost when the transition was made from stone tablets to scrolls, too–but the convenience and increased accessibility of all manner of knowledge made that changeover well worth it. Likewise with electronic media (though the smell of the old stacks in the library whence I’m typing this remains an invaluable treasured sensation…).
I think it will be a dangerous mistake if we give up paper books. They’re a simple, durable technology relative to electronics. No power supply or maintenance needed, beyond keeping them away from water and fire. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m damn sure going to keep my favorite and most important books in hard copy, and pass them on to my kids as such.
I just bought some books last weekend from Half Price Books…real paper and stuff! (Master and Commander, and the first 2 Hornblowers). In fact, I’m thinking of buying another bookcase because I love having physical books around. It’s inviting in a way that e-books just don’t do for me.
There is another related issue re:covers that I just realized last night after two years of reading almost exclusively on a Kindle.
I finished a book (The Warmth of Other Suns), and really liked it. I thought about recommending it to friends and maybe on here, and though I knew the title (it’s always at the top of the page), I had no idea after finishing it what the author’s name was. Paper books have the author listed prominently on the cover and on the spine, but on a Kindle you have to search for it. It’s a big drawback.
We’ll all be dead and buried before paper books are. Ebook readers may become a lot more popular than the niche market they are, but paper books will take decades to disappear.
