Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
I have a signed copy of Cornel West's Restoring Hope that I accidentally dropped in a puddle one day. It's still readable, but why did this have to happen to a signed copy?
Which brings up another point in favor of paper: authors can't autograph e-books!
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Because you took your signed copy outdoors? IMO signed copies are 'keepsakes' and I don't generally carry those around. (Of course maybe you'd just gotten it signed. That happens, like when I bought an antique cabinet sewing machine & it fell out of the truck while I was bringing it home. Ouch!)
I think most of the responders to my post about Mobipocket's bookshelf missed my point. The tech to display ebooks on a bookshelf does exist-but neither it nor the ebook industry is mature enough for it to be anything more than a slender niche right now-but it is there, which means that once the industry matures (IMO one thing that will mean is some sort of 'universal' format, which I doubt will be Mobipocket's-but it's possible) the bookshelf technology can be a part of that. For now, I agree with those who said it's too much trouble (or impossible due to reader limitations) to convert everything to Mobipocket format then add covers, etc.
I've done that, but more as a project to prove that it's feasible-in no way does that mean I think it's practical. Yes, I display my Mobipocket books that way, because I like the appearance of the display & I like the ability to 'browse' thru my library (or at least that part of it that's in Mobipocket format). That's personal choice (as is the opinion of the responder who said he didn't care to display his books).
As for signing ebooks, I'm pretty sure the tech is there although I don't know of anybody who's implemented it for ebooks. (I know of several organizations that use digitized signatures on documents, but mostly those are documents that end up being printed.) But basically, all it would require is adding a digitized image-and maybe a digital signature to prevent people from 'forging' signatures. (So many possibilities there-but really little more than is currently possible with pbooks.)
So I'm pretty sure that's possible-but to make that easy would be another matter and again, is likely to wait until the ebook industry matures. (I suppose it depends on what is meant by 'matures', too. IMO it'll be mature when people can buy an ebook & treat it pretty much like they treat pbooks now, i.e. write in it, tear out pages, decorate it, etc. but not edit it. They can even add pages to a pbook, although not in a 'permanent' fashion. (I do it all the time on a book covering a news topic-I simply insert the news articles I clip or print between the pages of the book.)
So a lot more can be done than is usually being done, but little of it is easy yet. And that, I think, is what I mean by the ebook industry maturing-it'll make it easy for the novice user to do all these things that are 'instinctive' with pbooks.