I live in the south of Ireland in a city named Cork. It's not particularily large by international standards - only about 200,000 in the city and a similar amount in the surrounding county (or state in US terms). This is small, but thats a good thing. Despite the wide variety of nationalities, creeds and districts there is still a real sense of community which is fantastic in this modern day and age.
In the past number of weeks we have been affected by some really hard rains and floods which have hit many of our communities really hard.
Today, several days after the floods, there are many houses and streets with flood-damaged furniture, carpets and personal belongings stacked outside for collection. This made me think about how we tend to collect and value physical objects in our lives. And due to my sad obsession with all things digital, this led me to the subject of Digital Publishing and eBooks.
This seems to be part of the resistance to ebooks - the fact that many of those who download digital files resent the fact that they cannot possess and distribute their eBooks due to DRM(Digital Rights Management) restrictions.
Maybe we are holding on to a concept from the recent past where we own our property - a concept very much removed from the collaborative, interactive community of ownership that exists on the internet. Think Wikipedia for example. None of us own an entry on Wikipedia, but we all contribute. We can't control our favourite sites, but we can all help to improve its service.
Maybe this is the way we should begin to look at eBooks.
Is ownership a realistic option in the shifting sands of an on-demand age?
Is renting an eBook a better option than buying it outright?
Will a subscription model allow you the access all the content you crave at a more realistic price?
Does cloud computing offer a solution where our purchased eBooks are hosted remotely on a "bookshelf" allowing us to download any format to any device remotely?
These are all questions that will only be resolved over the coming months and years. It is worth remembering though, that as people lose their homes and livelihoods, possession is temporary and can be swept away at any time. The true value of books is not their physical form or properties, but their content - the dreams they inspire, the concepts they create and the emotional tide that their narratives allow us to ride.