Professor blasts e-books over unfulfilled promise

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

By all means go ahead and produce "enhanced" ebooks. As long as they're being made available in addition to ordinary versions so that I don't have to buy them, it's all good.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Sefiriot

The whole fun of a book is visualising it in my head and perhaps coming up with a soundtrack to it-- all highly personal. I don't want someone else intruding on that part of my headspace when I'm reading!

This is the way I feel too.
Apache

[Catlady]

I never thought I'd say this, but ... there might be some interesting enhancement possibilities, at least in nonfiction. When I was reading a book on D-Day, for example, when there was an account of General Eisenhower's "order of the day," I went in search of the audio file so I could listen to it--it would have been nice to have the ability to click on an icon and hear it immediately.

I wouldn't want any enhancements to be automatic, though. I'd want them to be unobtrusive unless I specifically wanted a particular item. Something along the lines of a clickable footnote, perhaps.

[Heitor]

Books (be they printed or digital) are works of fixed language, usually written language. If you want music, there is music; if you want video, there is cinema; if you want staging, there is theater. But literature is an art of language. Demanding the enhancement of books would only weaken our relationship to language, what has already been done by mass culture for several decades. But the opinion's author makes some confusion: he apparently sets out to criticize news organizations (that is what the title is about), but his examples come from literature (including non-fiction and entertainment). Those are different things. Journalism is not about language in the same way literature is. Journalism is about conveying information, whether by language or by images. In most newspapers' websites I've been visiting, I can get news through text, audio or video. News organizations don't think like legacy media overall. Only the book industry, because book is something else, which the journalism professor doesn't seem to grasp.

[Lady Blue]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

For many if not most of us, e-books are digital versions of printed books. And they are just that. Others, on the other hand, believe that e-books should offer additional content and multimedia enrichment. Meet Bill Adair, Knight Professor for the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, who recently described his disappointing experience with e-books in an article published on Poynter's.

Quote:
I spent my vacation reading from pixels instead of paper.

I read e-book versions of “Bruce,” a Springsteen biography by Peter Ames Carlin, and Dan Brown’s bestselling novel “Inferno.” Both had great potential for extra audio and video that could have created a much richer experience. But the e-books offered no more than the ink-on-paper versions.

Well, of course. The potential for all the extras was there, but did you not know what an e-book currently is before you started reading it? Didn't you know beforehand that Bruce was not going to sing to you or reach out and shake your hand? What was it that you expected from it that made it so disappointing? It's not as if the e-book promised these things and didn't deliver. How could you honestly be disappointed in something you didn't expect? And if you DID expect more, WHY did you?

My disappointing experience offers a lesson for news organizations that are considering selling e-books because its shows how legacy media is still thinking like … legacy media. Book publishers still have an old-school mentality — like many newspaper editors.

How does your disappointing experience offer a lesson ... ? If you fell off a cliff while walking because you were looking at the sky, I can see that experience offering a lesson to others to watch their step. But it sounds as if you feel that news organizations, et al. should abandon e-books because YOU were disappointed reading 2 e-books because they didn't sing and dance for you as well?

Do you think e-books need to be "enhanced" with multimedia features for a richer experience? Or do you prefer the single-dimensional aspect of text, where any kind of enhancement could potentially be intrusive and get in the way with the story?

If I misunderstood the actual meaning of this guy's words, I deeply apologize.

I read e-books expecting that they offer no more than the ink-on-paper versions, albeit in a much more convenient package. I'm not looking for a song and dance in the experience. If I was, I'd wait for the movie version.

[DBDigital]

I find this professor has no idea what a e-book really is. Also people are generally wanting a ebook cheaper than their paper conterparts. This means that if ebooks had other features such as multimedia then it would likely cost MORE than the paper version and I doubt it would sell well in that regard.

Also self-publishing would grind to a halt if every book needed multimedia to enhance the experience. Not many indie publishers can afford that, certainly not ones just starting out.

I remember long ago in the 80's ABC had 'commercials' (or public service messages take your pick) with a cat talking about reading more and visiting your library. Captain OG Readmore I think was his name. He touted "pick up a book and turn on the TV in your head". Also consider that most books made into a full multimedia experience (a movie) cost millions and usually is very lacking, or outright different than the book from which it was conceived.

The worst part about this professor, is that he is teaching the next generation of workforce. He shouldn't be allowed to teach since if he is so far off in what a actual book is, what else is he wrong about. And teaching the next generation as "fact".

If you want multimedia, go watch a movie or check out the internet. Books are different, and likely always will be (if nothing else than the cost difference between normal books and books with a multimedia experience).

[Ripplinger]

Like others here, I don't want my ebooks to ever be more than just that... books to read in peace and quiet and left to my own imagination. I want to read and visualize the story and locations for myself.

If they ever get to producing "enhanced" ebooks for those people who like to live with sensory overload for all their content, they have the option to put the content on DVDs with all the flash and glitz they want.

There are times when something in a book will pique my interest to want to know more, and then I'm perfectly free to look up the subject later on through the internet or other books. But I would never want sounds and videos interrupting my reading time, I never feel I have to put the book down immediately and stop reading to get a video fix right now over those extra curiosities that will pop up.

It's like he saying that words in a book aren't enough anymore, and I find that attitude sad and even quite disturbing. A well-written story is more than enough for me.

[cromag]

I believe they're separate products for different markets. I'm far more interested in conventional (more or less "flat file") ebooks, but if someone wants "enhancements" that's fine for them.

[wawasteele]

I agree with most here. I want a book to be a book. I want to use my mind to make the "enhancements". I also don't want to pay more for a book because they have added extra stuff.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by wawasteele

I agree with most here. I want a book to be a book. I want to use my mind to make the "enhancements". I also don't want to pay more for a book because they have added extra stuff.

I don't mind if they add extra stuff, if the devices can handle it. The only three things that count are:

1. The book must work completely independent from the source where you downloaded it, WITH and WITHOUT those extra functions. (I might want to try them in 5 years. You never know.)
2. I want to be able to fully disable those extra's.
3. If such an enhanced book is more expensive than an unenhanced book would have been, then there should be two versions: a cheap unenhanced one, and the more expensive enhanced one for the people who want it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I never thought I'd say this, but ... there might be some interesting enhancement possibilities, at least in nonfiction. When I was reading a book on D-Day, for example, when there was an account of General Eisenhower's "order of the day," I went in search of the audio file so I could listen to it--it would have been nice to have the ability to click on an icon and hear it immediately.

I wouldn't want any enhancements to be automatic, though. I'd want them to be unobtrusive unless I specifically wanted a particular item. Something along the lines of a clickable footnote, perhaps.

I would really like this kind of thing also. Other things you can get is for example 3D-models that you can rotate and study.

Kindle's X-Ray is a start in the development towards a richer and better reading experience.

[fjtorres]

Academics don't get out much.
Most of them are still tsk-tsking that Television became a medium for mass entertainment instead of a way of delivering academic lectures to the masses.

[NightGeometry]

I like books as books, but can be a bit contrary, so reacted to all the posts here saying pretty much the same as I thought by thinking of a contrarian view. And to be honest, as Catlady says, I can see his point *in some circumstances*.

A biography of Bruce Springsteen is a good example. I wouldn't think it out of place to have audio snippets available. Extracts from his songs, for example. Further, if interviews are quoted then including audio from them to give context doesn't seem horrific. Video excerpts from mentioned concerts or key events?

In all biographies having extra content such as this available doesn't seem a bad thing. In fact, possibly all non-fiction.

As far as fiction goes, I'll just take the words on the page thankyouverymuch.

(But he was reading Dan Brown, so...)

[xg4bx]

I could see how it could be interesting for a biography or non-fiction but completely unnecessary for fiction.

[OtterBooks]

I get a sense he doesn't even understand the technology or why people use it. The advantage of ebooks is in the means of storage and consumption, not a change of content (or a change in the entire art form for that matter). Some of the things he wishes for actually exist to some degree with things like Kindle's X-ray, and I'm sure more stuff like that will come, but really most enhancements are going to rely on hardware functions, which has little to do with the publishers he is pointing a finger at. There's just too much "not getting it" in that article.