Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleDe
Another phenomenon is the publishing in eBook form many books that are out of print and hard to find. Some are excellent and there is a proliferation of out of copyright books from times gone by giving us a fresh perspective on recent history. What I see is a bunch of books to read that would otherwise be unavailable. I prefer a eBook much more than nothing. I must be a dinosaur of a different sort.
Dale
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Yes, this is a good point. I still remember what research was like in the years before the internet. Traipsing to the British Library to read on microfilm what can now be hosted on the web in PDF. I'm not sure it has improved the quality of research though. When you had to blow dust off books and wear out shoe leather you appreciated what you found a lot more than perhaps people do when it is a few seconds away from a search engine. The number of ebooks I have that I simply haven't read yet far exceeds the number of print books. I fear some people may no longer be reading books, but rather just searching them and data-mining them. This adds a different perspective on knowledge. Still, I agree with you, being able to get hold of books that in the past would have been difficult to obtain has to be a good thing.