Over the weekend, I did a guest column on
Teleread in which I argued ebook authors should abandon the notion of the “page.”
I argued that pages have little meaning in e-book form, because pages become amorphous shape shifting creatures depending on the e-book reader; the reader’s choice of font size, font style or line spacing; or in the case of the iPhone, whether they’re holding it vertically or sideways.
When the notion of page disappears, it creates problems for traditionally formatted books which include page numbers, table of contents, indexes and footnotes.
One person replied that we must preserve the notion of the page for academic texts, which by definition must reference the sources of their material. And academic texts aren't alone in their marriage to the page.
So what do you think? Is the page dead? Is is threatened? How do we preserve the findability of a word, passage or page? Should we save the page, and if so, how?