Professore Umberto Eco calls us eReaders "Taliban" in interview - Page 4

Vivian · 12-24-2010, 08:43 PM

He sounds paranoid. Embracing electronic books does not have to mean abandoning paper books. I continue to read and buy both.

Penforhire · 12-24-2010, 09:02 PM

Richey, no offense taken. My dad was the primary culprit. Nevertheless it is a fact of life, or was, for me. I know I'm not alone as I know others who also started back in the days of tape storage, then 8" floppies, the 5.25" , then 3.5" (and mix in Zip drives and other flash-in-the-pan formats). So to wave your hands today and say we're fine with CD's or DVD's or whatever you are using, and little future effort will be required, is naive and likely to be wrong.

I agree that storage capacity is beginning to pull ahead but it is not the complete freedom you may be thinking of yet. I myself made a bunch of panoramic (composited) images of 900 MB (0.9 GB) file size each. A well-exposed 35 mm Velvia slide contains somewhere between 15 and 60 MB of data, depending on color depth (8 bit to 24 bit). Process any digital video (DV) lately? That'll tax your storage (and processing power). We're not quite at the devil-may-care stage of digital storage.

italianReader · 12-26-2010, 06:49 AM

I think that there is a sort of misunderstanding in this thread among what kinds of data need to be "conserved".
Just to sum up some points (and add my opinions):

-to preserve everything that's written (or more generally produced) today: this seems to be quite unlikely to happen but...do we need it? That's never happened in human history.

-to preserve everything valuable from a literary (or artistic) point o view: it's pretty difficult to decide what's worth to last but as far as all the people in the world is concerned I think that we will make a pretty good choice.

-to preserve everything valuable to every single one: everyone will do his/her be best to accomplish it...someone will surely fail but hey, this has always happened even with paper books (or not-digital support).

Vivian · 12-31-2010, 01:17 PM

italianReader, your comments about book preservation make me think of a way that ebooks might actually do paper books some good. There are no returns with ebooks. Returns, I personally think, are the bane of the publishing industry and need to be abolished. E-books, Publishing On Demand and other new publishing phenomena will force the industry to change and perhaps even spell the end of returns. Because returns eat into profits, publishers are forced to try and recoup their losses any way they can, usually by cutting corners with quality. Paperbacks are printed on cheap paper. Hardcovers are given inadequate bindings that crack after a few months' use, either because of cheap glue or because the perfect binding method is used. It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to buy hardcovers. Before I buy one, I will inspect it to make sure it's got a good-looking binding that flexes rather than being rigid. So I'm looking forward to the end of returns, and if ebooks can hasten that then they can only be helpful, not harmful, to paper books.

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12-24-2010, 08:43 PM	#46
Vivian Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 752 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Fredericton, NB Device: Kobo 1	He sounds paranoid. Embracing electronic books does not have to mean abandoning paper books. I continue to read and buy both.

12-24-2010, 09:02 PM	#47
Penforhire Wizard Posts: 2,230 Karma: 7145404 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Southern California Device: Kindle Voyage & iPhone 7+	Richey, no offense taken. My dad was the primary culprit. Nevertheless it is a fact of life, or was, for me. I know I'm not alone as I know others who also started back in the days of tape storage, then 8" floppies, the 5.25" , then 3.5" (and mix in Zip drives and other flash-in-the-pan formats). So to wave your hands today and say we're fine with CD's or DVD's or whatever you are using, and little future effort will be required, is naive and likely to be wrong. I agree that storage capacity is beginning to pull ahead but it is not the complete freedom you may be thinking of yet. I myself made a bunch of panoramic (composited) images of 900 MB (0.9 GB) file size each. A well-exposed 35 mm Velvia slide contains somewhere between 15 and 60 MB of data, depending on color depth (8 bit to 24 bit). Process any digital video (DV) lately? That'll tax your storage (and processing power). We're not quite at the devil-may-care stage of digital storage.

12-26-2010, 06:49 AM	#48
italianReader Connoisseur Posts: 74 Karma: 340 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: onyx boox 60	I think that there is a sort of misunderstanding in this thread among what kinds of data need to be "conserved". Just to sum up some points (and add my opinions): -to preserve everything that's written (or more generally produced) today: this seems to be quite unlikely to happen but...do we need it? That's never happened in human history. -to preserve everything valuable from a literary (or artistic) point o view: it's pretty difficult to decide what's worth to last but as far as all the people in the world is concerned I think that we will make a pretty good choice. -to preserve everything valuable to every single one: everyone will do his/her be best to accomplish it...someone will surely fail but hey, this has always happened even with paper books (or not-digital support).

12-31-2010, 01:17 PM	#49
Vivian Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 752 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Fredericton, NB Device: Kobo 1	italianReader, your comments about book preservation make me think of a way that ebooks might actually do paper books some good. There are no returns with ebooks. Returns, I personally think, are the bane of the publishing industry and need to be abolished. E-books, Publishing On Demand and other new publishing phenomena will force the industry to change and perhaps even spell the end of returns. Because returns eat into profits, publishers are forced to try and recoup their losses any way they can, usually by cutting corners with quality. Paperbacks are printed on cheap paper. Hardcovers are given inadequate bindings that crack after a few months' use, either because of cheap glue or because the perfect binding method is used. It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to buy hardcovers. Before I buy one, I will inspect it to make sure it's got a good-looking binding that flexes rather than being rigid. So I'm looking forward to the end of returns, and if ebooks can hasten that then they can only be helpful, not harmful, to paper books.

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