Quote:
Originally Posted by anacreon
I'm building an electronic reference library, much of it books I already have on paper. I have more and more problems with paper: the weight and volume (for my arthritic hands as well as for my walls), the degrading paper, the sensitivity to light, dryness, wetness, characters that are sometimes becoming difficult to read, the difficulty finding a book among thousands, a sentence in a book, are what first come to mind. And I back-up my books, several hard drives at home and at least one away. It is easy with at present under 10 Gb, unlike music or photos which run in the hundreds.
Of course I still have many paper books: art books, beautiful books, books that don't exist in electronic versions, manuals and such. And books do furnish a room, and I do have an attachment to many.
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Yeah I get that. But why are people worried if a novel they bought on an ereader....will still be available to them 20 years later??? It doesn't make sense. 20 years is under a quarter of a lifetime statistically and many people who read ebooks are not spring chickens. I guess if one is 10 years old and wants to read a book again when they are 30. But a ten year old is not thinking about such things and can re-buy the book when they are making their own money.
I like to read novels. Pretty much once I am done with it I don't re-read. If I get a hankering to reread it one day and if I don't have a copy I will re-buy it. But I could only think of maybe at most a dozen books right now that I would maybe do that.
Now if you are doing it for the reasons you state, again I don't think it's a worry if you are older. Do you see yourself looking at your reference library 20 years plus from now?
Again people know the score when buying books on an ereader. They can disappear at any time and probably will disappear as technology advances into the future or companies fall. I for one do not want to continually diddle around with electronically storing old book files, or keeping older outdated devices to manage them. Just not worth my time. If I really really really want to keep a book for the future I will buy a hard copy of it.