Will e-book readers make your library obsolete?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Haha... my department wants to get 5 or 6 toughbooks so we can do certain paperwork during deployments that would otherwise have to wait for our return. I thought it was ridiculous to get that many toughbooks simply for that purpose when the same price would get a normal laptop for everyone in our department. *sigh* U.S. tax dollars hard at work.

Thats silly... they should just get $400 Netbooks and consider them throw aways. How many ASUS Eee PC's can you buy for the price of 1 Toughbook?

BOb

[lhickson]

I will always have both! I love the e-books for the convenience of taking them everywhere without all the weight and bulk but I will never give up my books in my bookcases either!

Lucy H.

[deety]

If anything, I think that e-books will improve the quality of my home library.

I have a hell of a lot of shelf space, and it's all full. I've already been weeding out books, and I've needed to get rid of some that I'm pretty sure I'll want to read again someday. I'm planning to start buying e-books for almost all of my typical entertainment reading, and I'm going to replace a lot of the pbooks that I liked but don't necessarily love.

Eventually my library will mostly be the books I love best, the strange ones I can't bring myself to part with, and the few collections that I'm working on. And the best part is that once my shelves get a little less stuffed, I'll be able to splurge at a used bookshop sometimes without having to stress about my storage issues!

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by deety

If anything, I think that e-books will improve the quality of my home library.

I have a hell of a lot of shelf space, and it's all full. I've already been weeding out books, and I've needed to get rid of some that I'm pretty sure I'll want to read again someday. I'm planning to start buying e-books for almost all of my typical entertainment reading, and I'm going to replace a lot of the pbooks that I liked but don't necessarily love.

you've obviously had them too long, potatoes will be sprouting soon ...

[BuddyBoy]

I'm all about trying to live in a smaller footprint if I can. I still love books and will no doubt always have a half dozen bookcases around, but part of the value of eBooks for me has been savings in shelf-inches for each title.

I will buy titles I already own in an electronic format if it clears some space in my library, especially if they are thick tomes, like Mrs. Beeton's Guide to Household Management. Now instead of purging every six months, I can go a year or more before I must start weaning out the ephemeral titles from my shelves.

I (Heart) eBooks.

[ficbot]

I buy fitness books and cookbooks in paper, and have not replaced my trade paperbacks for the most part, nor do I plan to (I have them already so I will not buy them again). But all of my mass-market paperback type of reads are now in e-book, and that is progress imho. I simply do not have space to store as many books as I want to, and while I suppose it would be nice to be rich enough to be able to contemplate the luxury of a book room with the funds to fill it, I am not in that position nor do I know people who are. So I do not think that magazine writer represents the average person here. What I like about my ebooks is I do not have to worry about storing them on a physical shelf, so I can keep all the ones I buy and not worry about selling them back to the used bookstore due to space constraints.

I do have some regular mass market paperbacks I have kept around through the years and most of them are in a pretty sorry condition. If it's fiction and it's available in E, I will buy it in E from now on. If it is not available in E, I will get it from the library. And if it is a cookbook, fitness book or reference book, I will buy in paper.

[yvanleterrible]

If there was a conclusion analysis to this poll it would be that since the ebook is so young, most text lovers are still wrapped up in the transfer pains from one medium to the other. As such it would take at least one human generation to sort it all out.

Some will argue that ambivalence between mediae will stay, others that change will not take place, but most will accept the change and gladly accept that paper goes away. I believe that all three will remain with the third becoming stronger and stronger.

One thing is certain. Big industrial presses will die. I will not cry for them for they have killed the small artisan press.

As a fervent believer of the ebook and an artisan myself, I would like to see a rebirth. That of the artisan press, one done on hand made paper, with art in mind...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Some will argue that ambivalence between mediae will stay, others that change will not take place, but most will accept the change and gladly accept that paper goes away. I believe that all three will remain with the third becoming stronger and stronger.

One thing is certain. Big industrial presses will die. I will not cry for them for they have killed the small artisan press.

"Death of paper - News at 11!"

One of the most "over-predicted events" of recent years, and one which looks no more likely to happen at any time in the foreseeable future than it ever has.

Big industrial presses will die? Please! Do you really think that newspapers are going to vanish?

By the way, "media" is already a plural (the plural of "medium"). Please let's not invent fake Latin plurals (mediae????) for what's already a perfectly acceptable Latin plural in itself .

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"Death of paper - News at 11!"

One of the most "over-predicted events" of recent years, and one which looks no more likely to happen at any time in the foreseeable future than it ever has.

Big industrial presses will die? Please! Do you really think that newspapers are going to vanish?

Judging from the stock prices, and bankruptcies in progress now, of course.
One would have to be ignorant of what is going on and self delusional at the same time to pretend anything else.



The collapse of dead tree journalism was well underway before the current economic hardships, but they will speed up the inevitable.

[yvanleterrible]

"Death of paper - News at 11!"

I've never said that paper would die, on the contrary. Read here.

I believe that all three will remain

Big industrial presses will die? Please! Do you really think that newspapers are going to vanish?

They will only print the wrappings commodities come in. Yes, newspapers will die, strangled by their weight, in all senses. Look around you. Here they're half dead and gurgling in their ink.

Thank you for the latin lesson. But I will refrain myself and stay polite.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Judging from the stock prices, and bankruptcies in progress now, of course.
One would have to be ignorant of what is going on and self delusional at the same time to pretend anything else.

I don't know what's happening in your country, my friend, but the newspaper business is alive and - if not well, then surviving OK - here in the UK, and I am entirely confident that print newspapers will still be with us in 10 or even 20 years' time.

[yvanleterrible]

There will be a day when an ebook reader will be cheaper than the average paper book. Count on it!

[giddion]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

There will be a day when an ebook reader will be cheaper than the average paper book. Count on it!

You are correct and that will be the end of ebooks as we know them, it will be the prefect DRM, a single use ebook with the content burned into an IC chip so it can't be copied.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by TadW

Bloomberg columnist David Pauly is contemplating the potential effects the Kindle might have on the future of home libraries. And the future ain't looking good (if you ask David).







So I started a new poll. Do you think an e-book reader might at one point replace your library at home (or perhaps did it already)? If yes, would you be worried?

No it won't. The Riepl's law states that

Riepl, the chief editor of Nuremberg's biggest newspaper at the time, stated in his dissertation about ancient modes of news communications (original title: "Das Nachrichtenwesen des Altertums mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Römer") that new, further developed types of media never replace the existing modes of media and their usage patterns. Instead, a convergence takes place in their field, leading to a different way and field of use for these older forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riepl%27s_law

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't know what's happening in your country, my friend, but the newspaper business is alive and - if not well, then surviving OK - here in the UK, and I am entirely confident that print newspapers will still be with us in 10 or even 20 years' time.

Here they are dying. Newspapers in the US exist on ad revenue, and much of the ad revenue has been migrating to the Web. Raising customer's purchase price to make up for it causes a further drop in readership. I'm an example. I started reading The Wall Street Journal in 1976. In 2006, I dropped my subscription because I was unemployed and they wanted $250 a year for it. Four months later they offered me 2 years at $99 a year, so I resubscribed. Now they want $450 a year for a subscription. Even with a job, (which I don't have at the moment) it's not worth $450 a year to me. I can get much of the same news from various free websites. Furthermore, I can get more quote information on the web than I can get in the Wall Street Journal. That's why newspapers are dying in the US.