[axel77]

Now this topics are revived, I recently came upon a line in a book that talked about hypertexts in academic context. One major problem they are presumed to have is the symbolic status of the book.

The book is *the* symbol for scholarliness.

And I consider Hornby is freightened eBooks might destroy that symbol. And this is even justifiably so. The eBook has potential to destroy the book as symbol for scholarliness. I consider however Hornby mismatches it with the destroyed symbol also scholarliness as concept will be destroyed also, and I think this is wrong.

However yes, it will be far more difficult if you superficially watch a man at his (home)office to determine if s/he does any "inteligent" work or just reads facebook junk all the determine. Currently you can go into his homeoffice you see walls of books, and you think, wow that wo/man must be smart (or at least well educated, I think one can fairly distinguish this traits). In the "new age" of eBooks, you will just see a cosy room, and some device lying on a table. You cannot say if s/he uses it to read about Hegel and Aristoteles or if s/he plays tetris with it all the time. There are less clues, less symbols, you'd really need to talk with him/her.

Also due to this one device does it all, at least with the notebook I catch myself quickly doing distractive things, like posting on mobileread, instead of working what I wanted to do.