Quote:
Originally Posted by crich70
.. not all books translate well to ebook formats. A set of encyclopedias for example wouldn't do well as ebooks due to the size of the file. Nor I think would most reference materials. Fiction yes, but non-fiction no.
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I feel that reference materials are particularly suitable for digital formats, though not the barely formatted text files that are currently still very common. But better formats exist, and being able to search, annotate, access embedded media (videos, audio, etc.), cross-reference painlessly, etc. are all huge benefits for educational and other non-fiction resources.
This form of "enhanced" books is, I think, the real advantage of digital books. It's not not well realized so far, and so if I buy something as large as, say, a bible, I typically only get the advantage of the e-book needing little physical space, having a rudimentary search function, and offering a way of adjusting the font size (which is actually quite a substantial advantage). E-books are still in the childhood stage.
Encyclopedias probably work better as hypertext-based media (like Wikipedia) and databases than they do as books.