Leafing Through Books : Why ereaders aren't worth a 600 y.o technology !

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Anthem

Why do people smell wine?

Smell is naturally connected to taste. There's no inherent connection between smell and vision.

Originally Posted by Anthem

Speaking personally, the smell of a book speaks about the quality of a book and the processes used to bring about the result. Mass market paperbacks and finely milled paper stock from France DO NOT smell the same, have the same texture, or the same inherent qualities. A quick whiff can cue you in much faster than traveling to the manufacturing facilities to prove it to yourself.

Which has exactly what to do with the quality of literature? When it comes to literature, the package is irrelevant. It represents a distraction from the literature, not an augmentation of it. The Three Musketeers is as great a story in paperback as in hardback with a $500 binding... better, in fact, because I'm not thinking about expensive bindings. If I'm obsessing about the smell of finely-crafted french linen, I'm not absorbing the story.

My take: Feh on smelling books.

How do my ebooks smell? I have no idea.

[jdav]

One point in favour of a manual trawl through a paper book looking for a certain character or fact, is that in your effort to find the relevant paragraph, your journey through the pages forces you to recap on much of the content. A kind of enforced revision. This results in a better knowledge of the whole book. An electronic search usually takes you instantly to the right paragraph, time is saved but you don't gain the benefit of revision. This is of course mostly relevant to academic use.

It is a little like the days before GPS, with my poor sense of direction, I could easily see the whole city before I found the address I was looking for.

[DMB]

While I am a convert to ebooks for most practical purposes, I have to say that I have in the past been thrilled to read 18th-century books printed on beautiful rag paper and bound in leather, particularly when I have known who probably read the book before me.

There is an added pleasure in making connections like this that is nothing to do with the content. I suppose it's one of the reasons we may like antiques.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

When it comes to literature, the package is irrelevant.

While I would agree with you on a strictly abstract level, I have to say that when trading money for a book I am unable to ignore the container of the content when deciding how much a given title is worth. You are beyond me on that one.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

It represents a distraction from the literature, not an augmentation of it.

Then we would agree that there exists no distraction-less piece of writing in all of human history, I assume? Operating with this understanding necessitates this view because no piece of literature is unencumbered by a container of some sort, whether physical or digital.

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

If I'm obsessing about the smell of finely-crafted french linen, I'm not absorbing the story.

That is a personal call and I would not wish to disagree with it. I agree with your denigration of obsession in relation to this topic. It would probably be an unhealthy obsession when all you want to do is read the book. The collector's of fine books are obviously taking part in a passion wherein their values and judgments are based on different criteria, which would be necessarily divorced from ideals obsessing over the pure and unadulterated experience of the text as removed from thoughts concerning the container as possible.

Overall, when you and I are speaking about the smell of a well made item (which can evince certain qualities) it appears (from your comments here and my previous comments) that we may be talking at different walls and a pursuit of mutual understanding may be strenuous, at best.

[Fastolfe]

Originally Posted by Anthem

I'm curious about the thought processes behind referring to things as "dead tree" versions: do you do this for everything that has wood in it, or is it specially reserved for heaping scorn upon printed books? I have resisted the urge to call my coffee table (and about 90% of everything in my home) a dead tree coffee table up till now, but maybe I should start? If you can make it convincing I just may do this. (Might annoy my wife if I do it for everything with wood in it that is clearly no longer living though)

Feeling constipated lately?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Anthem

Then we would agree that there exists no distraction-less piece of writing in all of human history, I assume? Operating with this understanding necessitates this view because no piece of literature is unencumbered by a container of some sort, whether physical or digital...

Overall, when you and I are speaking about the smell of a well made item (which can evince certain qualities) it appears (from your comments here and my previous comments) that we may be talking at different walls and a pursuit of mutual understanding may be strenuous, at best.

Yes, I'd agree (on an abstract level) that all literature comes in some kind of a package. To me as a reader, the goal is to be so absorbed by the story that the package becomes completely invisible... much like I can watch a movie without thinking about the projector or the size of the screen.

I do understand on a visceral level those who get as much enjoyment from the package as the product. I simply don't get that from paper, which (in every form I am exposed to it) is a highly-preprocessed and environmentally wasteful product, neither of which appeals to me. And as there's nothing particularly pleasurable about the feel and smell of paper in any other form (I never got a kick out of paper in school, when filling out a job form, opening a birthday card, or writing a check), I fail to see what tactile or olfactory pleasure is gained from the same type of paper just because it is used in a book.

In short, it's a fetish that I've never appreciated. So, for myself, I've never seen how it was an important part of any discussion about the practical differences between printed versus digital books. It's such a minor issue, and its discussion usually gets taken way out of proportion (much like in this thread).

So, we'll agree to disagree, and move on to other matters.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by jehane

I can go directly to a specific page on my Sony, so when I want to go back a few pages to check a previous scene, I can. Sure, it takes guesstimating and searching for the right page, but so would paper. And the best thing is that I can then bookmark it for future reference if I want to.

I assumed all ereaders had a goto facility. Is this not the case?

Yes, when the passage in question is just a little before. But when going back to a realy earlier passage. Or finding your page when your reader lost it.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Which has exactly what to do with the quality of literature?

If humans were 100% rational, nothing. However, that's not really the case.

The medium often influences the message, yes?



Something as basic as a cover image or photo can be particularly memorable, poignant or iconic (e.g. the cover of Trout Fishing In America); many still think fondly of the "irrelevant" packaging of vinyl records.

More to the point, though, is that the "smell of books" is a bit of shorthand for the emotional appeal of the tangibility of paper books. Personally I don't particularly care, but the fact that I don't care does not make it go away for everyone else.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

More to the point, though, is that the "smell of books" is a bit of shorthand for the emotional appeal of the tangibility of paper books. Personally I don't particularly care, but the fact that I don't care does not make it go away for everyone else.

Exactly. I don't care for the smell of books, but there's no need to denigrate or dismiss what others value. We all have different preferences and priorities, and ways of enjoying things in life.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by Fastolfe

Feeling constipated lately?

(No more than usual?!) Since when did genuine curiosity become synonymous with a lack of regularity in your bowels? You kill me!

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I do understand on a visceral level those who get as much enjoyment from the package as the product.

While you can understand them I am not as capable. I am occasionally reminded of something with a smell but I normally lack that thing that allows for positive associations. I don't know why but I am just not able to do it. Maybe my sinuses are getting worse as I age?!

I agree to move on, but would like to point out as we do so that this is not at all what I was addressing with my comments on smell. I was just talking about identifying certain marks of quality using your nose (identifying certain chemicals in paper composition, the results of different raw materials being used (types of leather and the processes required to process them), et cetera, which are identifiable using your nose on occasion much as looking at the pore patterns visually (unless they are artificial, which happens a lot these days), not to mention the presence of certain reserves in a paper mixture). Which is definitely not what you are addressing so I hope that clears up some of the fog as we were definitely talking about different things.

I realize that when people speak about smell in relation to books they are normally speaking about what you are speaking about, and I should have tried harder to make it obvious that I was attempting to broach a different topic in relation to smell (I thought the wine tasters among us would understand my wine testing reference but I was not so lucky!).

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Personally I don't particularly care, but the fact that I don't care does not make it go away for everyone else.

A long time ago, when I first contemplated (2000, yes I remember!) moving some of my reading over to electronic displays I worried a bit about this. After a book or two, I found out that I really don't do that sort of thing with books and I just read them. Which was a surprise. Over time, I have learned that I am not much of a sentimentalist (despite being a sap) and my disillusionment was rapid and brief.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Fastolfe

You couldn't be more correct. Smells are very powerful memory triggers. As it happens, certain kinds of paper glues instantly remind me of the primary school I attended in my happy childhood days, gasoline reminds me of when my whole family hit the road for the summer holidays, and moldy paper reminds me of my grandfather who used to lend me his old books, and whom I loved dearly. To me, it's an integral part of the pleasure of reading. It's not just about words.

Nasty smells to you, lovely smells to me; it depends on what you associate them with. I'm fairly sure a great many people of my generation associate the smell of books with lovely memories of reading by the fire in the winter, or stealing reading time at night in the attic as a kid, etc.

Perhaps today's kids are forming long-term memory associations between happy reading times and that distinctive smell of brand new electronic equipment that's been packaged in polystyrene for too long. To me, that smell is nasty, but to them, it might turn out to be the smell of their childhood in 20 or 30 years, who knows...

In that case, may I recommend those "book smell" sprays? That will take care of it.

[Huyggy]

Originally Posted by flake

This thread may just be the start of new possibilities! I read tech books too, and ereader is not adequate for this use, I agree. Maybe once the battles for 'bigger screen', 'faster processor', etc have been won, the technical market segment may get more attention.
May be somebody could start looking at how to e- flip pages :-).

May be somebody could split the screen in 2, and 1 part of the screen is the current page, and the other half is thumbnails of previous/next pages. Or, 'page flow', like iTunes album flow.

There is definitely a market for ereader with e-flip, if designed right. :-)

I think your post is very inspiring. I don't think that what I would like to see in ereaders is a technical limitation, basically.
Of course we could have multiple paper-thin, flexible page ereaders in the future, and all the reproaches that I mentioned would disappear. I understand that this time is quite far from now (maybe 5 years yet).

I think this "e-flip" feature could be maybe created or simulated thanks to the ingenuity of the company engineers : imagine for example a screen big enough where two pages could be displayed. Imagine also that the thickness of the book is reproduced on the screen with bookmarks for example stuck in this book thickness.. That you can go to a section in particular by putting your finger at a specific level of thickness.... As in a "real" book and so intuitive in this paper-based technology!

Again, I think we don't have this yet, not because of a problem of technology, but because "millions" of others think the technology is well suited to their needs and our voice, in the academic/technical field isn't heard.
But I'm sure something like that would convince lots of luddites/"paper lovers" too.

Originally Posted by cfrizz

You are correct, that as it stands now, they are not good for work manuals & things of that nature. However, that certainly doesn't mean that ereaders are useless. They simply aren't of any use to you for your work situation.

But millions of us are having a great deal of fun & enjoyment reading our NOVELS on one convenient, lightweight, transportable piece of equipment.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

Again, I think we don't have this yet, not because of a problem of technology, but because "millions" of others think the technology is well suited to their needs and our voice, in the academic/technical field isn't heard.
But I'm sure something like that would convince lots of luddites/"paper lovers" too.

Development takes time. E-readers and tablets are just getting established. Devices geared more toward academic use will emerge, because there's money to be made. This is one device, though very limited, that's headed in that direction:

http://phandroid.com/2011/01/13/what...ideo-ces-2011/

Bigger picture, a lack of imagination is a bigger stumbling block than technology. Many people can't see beyond their own narrow interests. If they don't need or want X, they can't see why anyone else might. Fortunately, the world includes people with more imagination, and it's always cool to see where their visions of the future might take us.

[jehane]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yes, when the passage in question is just a little before. But when going back to a realy earlier passage.

But I don't see how it is different from paper. With paper, you guesstimate the place you want, then go back or forth by a page or two until you find the bit you were looking for. Electronic versions are just the same - I've done this myself.

Or finding your page when your reader lost it.

My reader has never lost my page. I've lost count of the number of times bookmarks have fallen out of paper books. And anyway, I still don't see how flipping between paper pages is any different to changing electronic pages.

[paola]

Originally Posted by flake

I read tech books too, and ereader is not adequate for this use, I agree.

I have to disagree - I am new to ebooks, but there is quite a lot that they can do already for technical reading: you can flip pages by flisking your wrist, you can change orientation by rotating the device, you can zoom on a picture, you can search the content. To me it is more an issue of changing my habits, and learning on how to make the best use of what I have got. The thing I really miss is not be able to edit documents I created, but at least in my case this is more than compensated by the fact that I can pack into my e-reader loads of textbooks, journals, papers, you name it. So if you travel you can leave your laptop at home and travel light with your fully loaded reader.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that there is such a richness of devices out there, that I am fairly optimistic that there is one that, if you had it in your (Huyggy ) hands, would enable you to do more with it than you expect it to. But then of course, here you have all the zealotry of a recent convert