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Old 10-03-2009, 11:37 PM   #50
Harmon
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I'm one of the people who enjoy a well made book. There are times when the way a book is made - the size, quality of paper, font - impacts whether I buy the book or not. I also like that I can take a book down, show it to a friend, and lend it to him. I like that when a topic of conversation comes up, I can usually find a book or two in my library bearing on the subject, take it down and pretty quickly find the quote or section I am looking for. All these things can't be done with ebooks.

What I like about ebooks is portability. I like that I can take an ebook reader with me on a trip, long or short, without strain (I do put a couple of emergency books in my suitcase, though...) I like that because of Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archives, and Google Books, I have increasing access to tons of older books.

To me, an ebook reader is just another book. It has its own particular physicality, but mainly it has utility. I had my iphone with me this evening when I decided to stop at a place and have a bite to eat - so I had a copy of Dracula readily available (I'm reading it as part of the current Infinite Summer book http://infinitesummer.org/) That would not have happened if I only read physical books.

So I think that there's a kind of spectrum involved with pbooks and ebooks, from a kind of artistic enjoyment on one end to utility on the other, with each person occupying a preferred point on the spectrum. And I don't think that will ever go away. I agree with the poster who said that we really can't know how people will be reading a hundred years from now, but I think that they will not substitute a new way of reading for what we have now. Rather, I think they will add other ways of reading. What I think we are going to see is not a replacement of one technology (pbooks) with a different technology (ebooks), but a kind of expansion of the ways we read and the way we access books.

Last edited by Harmon; 10-03-2009 at 11:46 PM.
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