What is it with people and their paper books?

[runtmms]

</editorial>

Best way ever to end an editorial on Luddism.


-M

[mcgrath]

If we are talking about books in general, I will throw out the obvious one – lack of color and limited size. Theodore Gray's "The Elements" would never work on a Kindle (ok, the iPad version is pretty good), and I'm sure art and photography books would leave something to be desired compared to their full-sized counterparts.

I have not seen a pearl screen yet, so I'll be willing to eat my words when my Kindle 3 arrives, but if I look at the screen of the PRS-505 next to a page from any Library of America book there is no comparison - the LOA print is very crisp and the text is black, while the 505 is dark gray on light gray and the text is somewhat soft under close inspection.

At 800x600, the Kindle has a resolution of 167 pixels per inch. Standard print resolution is 300 dots per inch. The contrast and resolution difference between a non-pearl ereader and a high quality print book, to my eye, is significantly different. Having said that, there are so many poor quality print books that look like a 10th generation photocopy, the ereader is a welcome improvement.

The ereader is certainly an advance in terms of convenience, but until the e-ink screen equals or exceeds the very best print I can see why some people may unwilling to give up their paper books.

[Cosmo Spring]

Apropos of (almost) nothing: I just cracked open an older copy of Ferdinand Tonnies' Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, and the smell... *heaven*

[Cosmo Spring]

P.s. FACT: ereaders produce 100% less papercuts.

[SCBrazil]

Human civilisation has been creating, recording, inventing, theorising and absorving its art, knowledge, science, information and general existence on paper for over 2000 years. It will take more than 4 years of noughts and ones to change the preference.
My curiosity is why people insist on an 'either/or' scenario? One does not detract from the other, they are just wonderful additions to our possibilities of choice.

[JeremyZ]

Well said, polbit. I agree 100%

I do most of my reading on Kindle and computer screens, but there will always be a place in my heart for paper books. Especially ones I will read more than once. I made it a point to buy Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Sherlock Holmes in hardcover.

It is not a better reading experience. In some ways, it is worse. But in all ways, it is more tactile and more sensory-rich. I still like paper books and will lament they day they start to disappear.

The thing a lot of people here forget in their honeymooning period is that we don't have to choose. We can have both!

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Exer

Funny you mention that. When I finally started using a Kindle full time I ended up donating most of my books to a local organization (sort of like the Boys & Girls club). The only books I kept were my few dozen leather bound collectors editions, and it is amazing how beautiful they look displayed together without the couple hundred rather trashy looking paperback novels that had been mixed between them for years.

I'm hoping that the popularity of ebooks will actually lead to a greater call for artisan printings. If we're spending less on our day-to-day reading, more people might splurge on beautiful volumes of their best beloveds.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by mcgrath

At 800x600, the Kindle has a resolution of 167 pixels per inch. Standard print resolution is 300 dots per inch.

Standard print resolution is much better at least for the text. If I remember correctly photo offset machines are 1200dpi or better.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Standard print resolution is much better at least for the text. If I remember correctly photo offset machines are 1200dpi or better.

They are today - often a lot higher.

But, on the other hand, I'm currently proofing Rider Haggard's "She" against an 1898 scan from Google Books, which has obviously been directly typeset from typewritten pages - a monospaced Courier font. Moreover, a typewriter with uneven characters and the top line missing from every letter "a"!

[JeremyZ]

Originally Posted by Alisa

I'm hoping that the popularity of ebooks will actually lead to a greater call for artisan printings. If we're spending less on our day-to-day reading, more people might splurge on beautiful volumes of their best beloveds.

That is a good thought. Optimistic, but also realistic.

The same sort of thing happened in the watch world when quartz timed, battery powered watches burst on the scene in the 60s and 70s. The mechanical watches that are made now are, in general, much nicer than the majority of the ones made in the 60s and 70s. The technology has continued to grow, and we have nicer mechanical watches than ever before. Of course they are more expensive too, but one can't have everything.

Just like in the book world, the people who want more character go with old-school, and the people who want convenience go with modern. I like both.

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Andrew Kaufman

For me, getting my Kindle was sort of a no-brainer. Having all my books in one convenient, compact place? Check. Ordering books and then having them within minutes, often at cheaper price (well, it used to be that way)? Check. The list goes on and on. And while more and more people are converting and joining the club, it seems there are still plenty who are holding out and claiming they never will.

Which got me wondering: Why is it, do you suppose, that people refuse to go with e-readers? Is it an emotional thing? An unwillingness to adapt to technological advances? What is it? I've tried to figure this out, but every time I think I have, I really haven't. Can anyone offer some insight?

Andrew E. Kaufman/author

I love my Kindle, and I really like e-books. But I like paper books too. I can think of a number of reasons why people might stick with paper books.

For someone on a budget, paper books can be borrowed from the library or bought second hand. A Kindle could potentially be cheaper in the long run but is a big chunk of money to shell out today. A book is an impulse buy; a Kindle must be planned for.

Some people don't read all that many books--for them the Kindle is a bad deal.

Paper books remain readable no matter how many times you switch e-book readers.

Art historians and art lovers curse Leonardo Da Vinci's tendency to experiment with colors and methods because while other artists used paints and media that had stood the test of time, many of Leonardo's pieces flaked or changed color and now are gone forever. Similarly, while digital works are k-strategists, making so many copies of themselves they are nearly impossible to kill, they depend utterly on a digital environment that has not yet stood the test of time and may yet turn out to be more fragile than we like to think. A CD might last forever, but that does you no good if there's nothing to read it on. A paper book, on the other hand, is a well-known, traditional medium which has demonstrated it has the potential to last for centuries.

Some people are very fond of the book-as-artifact for its own sake.

And finally, it's common for people to need a while to get used to a new idea before adopting it. We're early adopters--many people choose to think about it for years, and watch how the early adopters get on, before making the switch themselves. And some people never do switch, but stick to the old ways. In general this is a good thing--it lets society experiment with new things without abandoning tried and tested alternatives.

[JeremyZ]

Well said, Cat!

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

...and we did a cost analysis of buying the paperback versus buying the ebook, and very quickly the savings paid off the initial price of the reader...

I think that money has a lot to do with it. I believe that many people will have a positive attitude to eBook readers when the day comes that they calculate in their own minds that the cost of an eBook reader plus six months of eBooks is less than the cost of six months of paper books.

My own view is that that calculation will be more convincing when the prices of the eBooks come down rather than the prices of the devices.

That is to say, fewer people would make the move if the eBook prices decline only a small amount while the devices are nearly free. If the prices of the eBooks drop significantly, people will calculate that the device will pay for itself in six months, and then they will be saving money for years to come (as long as the device lasts).

[Gwen Morse]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Often when I hear people wax poetic about the glories of the paper book, they are painting an image of some glorious wood-paneled library with walls full of leather-bound volumes. Cushy wing-back chair, fireplace, retriever at your feet. Basically the sort of thing you would expect to find in a stately home a hundred years ago. Let's face it. While some of us may have a handful of artisanal books gracing our shelves, the vast majority of the books we own are purely utilitarian vessels for text. Maybe they have an interesting cover, but very few books these days have decent paper or bindings. Even a $30 hardback is fuzzy printing on low-grade paper with a cloth binding. I've seen the book collections of my ephemeraphilic friends and they're full of mass market junk. They seem to be sentimental for the library they wish they had rather than the library they do have. The magic in their books is in the stories they contain, not the wood pulp and cheap ink.

I agree with all these points. I mostly read romance novels. I enjoy reading them more than once, but it's not really worth overloading my bookshelves with the "latest" from one of my favorite authors.

My 18 year-old son reads a mix of YA and adult espionage books. He insists on real books, he claims he enjoys the sensual reading experience.

My husband insists on buying books he'll never read, solely for the ability to show off his (always growing) book collection. He likes hardcover books with nice spines/jackets. As a backhanded way of getting more books into his collection, he will deliberately search out obscure books that aren't published as ebooks and request those as gifts (it's a tossup whether he'll read them).

I guess that makes me the outlier of the household, given that I only read paper books when people buy them for me. Amazon needs a way for people to give specific ebooks as gifts (rather than gift cards).

[jhempel24]

For me, as in a few other people that I know, Books smell and feel good.

There is nothing like curling up with a good book....and not a piece of electronic equipment.

I don't get the same feeling powering on my eReader as I do opening that book and hearing the pages turn.

I get a sense of accomplishment watching the pages shrink with my book mark, I enjoy the artwork on the covers.

I do like to read e-books, but I really LOVE to read paper books. I do read alot, and half price books is my best friend (I spend about $50 a month there, which is about 10 books a month).

Plus it's much cooler to show off a library than a screen that has "x" amount of books.