Future proofing: Books vs. eBooks

[taustin]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I will quietly point out that my 89 yo very non-technical mother finds calibre to be beyond her. Of course, she also can't figure out how to connect her kindle to the usb port on her computer, so using calibre is moot at this point. Alas, I'm too far away to go over there and show her how to do it ... again.

Do you believe she is representative of the market overall?

The plural of anecdote is not data.

[BeccaPrice]

I don't say that my mom is representative of the market overall, but I do think she's representative of a segment of it. On a kindle oriented list, I read complaints about how hard calibre is to use all the time. I don't understand that myself (how hard is "add book?" "Send to device?") but there is a certain class of users who love their kindles, use them all the time, and don't back up their books because they can't figure out how, and who find the calibre interface overwhelming.

anecdotes aren't data, of course, but they can indicate a trend.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by taustin

Those people aren't going to buy an ebook reader in the first place. And aren't going to be interested in rereading anything in the future, either. Which is to say, people completley unconnected to the issue at hand.

So all ereader owners are techheads? Nope, I don't buy it...

Originally Posted by taustin

We were talking about converting formats, and you injected that in the middle, with no transition, no indication you were changing the subject. I'll clean my screen if you take a remedial course in english composition.

Please try to keep up with your thesis. You contend that file formats aren't a problem because conversion exists, I note that conversion is in no sense a problem-free process, and you call that changing the subject?

Originally Posted by taustin

Which "it" are you talking about here? Buying books, or maintaining a library? Because you keep switching back and forth like you don't know the difference.

One must acquire books before one can have a library. Pretending that the two are unrelated - or that some put no more effort into library maintenance than buying books and shoving them onto shelves - is simply wrong.

[pidgeon92]

My mother-in-law can't figure out how to use her microwave. I hope she doesn't starve.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by taustin

It's HTML, which is plain text.

You know exactly what I mean by plain text, and are just trying to be obnoxious. I refuse to play.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I don't say that my mom is representative of the market overall, but I do think she's representative of a segment of it.

The question being, how significant a segment.

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

On a kindle oriented list, I read complaints about how hard calibre is to use all the time. I don't understand that myself (how hard is "add book?" "Send to device?") but there is a certain class of users who love their kindles, use them all the time, and don't back up their books because they can't figure out how, and who find the calibre interface overwhelming.

Since the subject is maintaining a digital library over a long period of time, vs. doing so with a paper library, how many of those people do you imagine have any clue how to properly store paper books?

The necessary skill set to back up and convert ebook files is fairly common, and getting more so. The necessary skill set to maintain, and repair and restore old paper books is not, and getting less so.

Most books being printed right now, today, will not exist in 20 years, because they're printed on crappy, non-acid free paper, with crappier glue bindings and crappier yet covers.

Meanwhile, even people who have a hard time turning a computer on and off will, more often than not, have a friend who can "help me move stuff over to the new computer."

More people will be preserving their digital library without even realizing it than who are preserving a paper library on purpose.

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

anecdotes aren't data, of course, but they can indicate a trend.

No, they really can't. They can indicate a perception of a trend, but it's pretty much always the perception that's expected (or desired). And that's not at all the same thing.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

(more of the same incoherent crap)

I like cheese.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

My mother-in-law can't figure out how to use her microwave. I hope she doesn't starve.

Does she know how to properly store books in a climate controlled store unit to prevent mold, minimize deteriorization of acid-y paper, damage from light, silverfish, etc?

Which do you think she could learn easier?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You know exactly what I mean by plain text, and are just trying to be obnoxious.

I'm only imitating you. You know exactly what I mean by plain text, too, and are just trying to respond to something I didn't actually say.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I refuse to play.

You just did.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I will quietly point out that my 89 yo very non-technical mother finds calibre to be beyond her. Of course, she also can't figure out how to connect her kindle to the usb port on her computer, so using calibre is moot at this point. Alas, I'm too far away to go over there and show her how to do it ... again.

My (almost) 70 yr old mother has similar problems. She can't even figure out how to turn my computer on (though she only wants to look at the obits for the Rockford newspaper (she's from Rockford IL) and I have to bring up the page for her when she wants to read them.

[theinfamousj]

Originally Posted by taustin

I like cheese.

Clearly the solution to all of this is to print out the ebooks while eating cheese, and simply to maintain the ex-digital, now cheese-smeared physical library. Then keep the digital files to backup the printed ones.

Cheese should be future proof.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by theinfamousj

Clearly the solution to all of this is to print out the ebooks

on cheese. Or, better yet, print it out using Cheeze-Wiz. We'll need some really big pieces of toast.

[BeccaPrice]

This book (Files that Last) might be of interest - it talks about digital preservation.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I will quietly point out that my 89 yo very non-technical mother finds calibre to be beyond her. Of course, she also can't figure out how to connect her kindle to the usb port on her computer, so using calibre is moot at this point. Alas, I'm too far away to go over there and show her how to do it ... again.

My mother is in her 80s and I help her with her T1. I use Calibre to do so. I have her laptop setup so I can remote in using TeamViewer. All she has to do is wake up the T1, hit the home button, plug in the USB cable and hit the prompt to allow the computer to see it. She does this and I can send over the eBook, put it in Calibre and then put it on her T1. I do this while on the phone with her. It's a very workable situation. She gets well formatted eBooks (I make sure it is) and she doesn't have to know how to use Calibre. It also means I don't have to go over there just to put an eBook on her T1.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by taustin

I've seen some bad automated formatting on files from B&N. They're trivial to fix, and I could write a script in about half an hour to detect such automatically - and 25 minutes of that would be googling for instructions.

Those could be self-published or from Smashwords or one of the smaller publishers. But it's not from B&N themselves doing any sort of formatting.