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Kumabjorn · 08-22-2012, 02:37 AM

I live fairly close to a university town. The fall semester is about to start, students are flowing in from everywhere trying to find housing and registering for classes. Hence, the town is blessed with a huge book store and right now is when they have a large interesting selection of books.

So, yesterday i went in there, mainly to walk around, have some coffee and study the new students (they are soo enthusiastic) when my eyes fell on the store. I hadn't been in there for almost two years. I entered and sauntered around, picked up a few books and glanced in them. Then I found one on a rather esoteric topic that interests me, a book I hadn't heard about. The price was a bit on the steep side, $65. So I thought to myself, perhaps I can find it cheaper online, took out my smartphone and did a bar code search with the camera. Yes, I could get it for $48 from Amazon, but factoring in S&H it would in the end be the same.

Since the work is something I would likely use as a volume of reference I thought that an electronic version might actually be better, and I admit it, probably far less. So I looked for Kindle and ePub versions. None. Zilch. I then looked at the copyright page and saw that it was 2010. Hmm, should have been produced on a computer. An eBook version would be a piece of cake. Well, what can you do. The publisher don't want to make an eBook, that is there prerogative.

So I took the book and stepped to the end of line. As I was standing there I noticed that only the odd person out seemed to be a student. So I asked one, why are there so few students, the store is usually teeming with them. Ohh, was the answer, they prefer electronic books. So much easier with annotations, looking up things. I looked down on my tome (700+ pages) and suddenly thought, "to hell with it, the publisher don't want to provide me with an eBook, why should I provide my money".

I returned it to the shelf and walked out empty handed. I also realized that my view on books and reading really had made a 180 degree turn around. In a very short time span. I don't believe I have ever encountered a technological paradigm shift that has influenced me this thoroughly.

08-22-2012, 02:37 AM	#1
Kumabjorn Basculocolpic Posts: 4,356 Karma: 20181319 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Sweden Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle 4SO, Kindle for Android, Sony PRS-350 and PRS-T1	A funny thing happened yesterday I live fairly close to a university town. The fall semester is about to start, students are flowing in from everywhere trying to find housing and registering for classes. Hence, the town is blessed with a huge book store and right now is when they have a large interesting selection of books. So, yesterday i went in there, mainly to walk around, have some coffee and study the new students (they are soo enthusiastic) when my eyes fell on the store. I hadn't been in there for almost two years. I entered and sauntered around, picked up a few books and glanced in them. Then I found one on a rather esoteric topic that interests me, a book I hadn't heard about. The price was a bit on the steep side, $65. So I thought to myself, perhaps I can find it cheaper online, took out my smartphone and did a bar code search with the camera. Yes, I could get it for $48 from Amazon, but factoring in S&H it would in the end be the same. Since the work is something I would likely use as a volume of reference I thought that an electronic version might actually be better, and I admit it, probably far less. So I looked for Kindle and ePub versions. None. Zilch. I then looked at the copyright page and saw that it was 2010. Hmm, should have been produced on a computer. An eBook version would be a piece of cake. Well, what can you do. The publisher don't want to make an eBook, that is there prerogative. So I took the book and stepped to the end of line. As I was standing there I noticed that only the odd person out seemed to be a student. So I asked one, why are there so few students, the store is usually teeming with them. Ohh, was the answer, they prefer electronic books. So much easier with annotations, looking up things. I looked down on my tome (700+ pages) and suddenly thought, "to hell with it, the publisher don't want to provide me with an eBook, why should I provide my money". I returned it to the shelf and walked out empty handed. I also realized that my view on books and reading really had made a 180 degree turn around. In a very short time span. I don't believe I have ever encountered a technological paradigm shift that has influenced me this thoroughly.