![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On e-books...
Apr. 3rd, 2009 05:49 pmI wouldn't get along with e-books because:
I treat them really badly. I drop them in the bath, I spill tea on them, I break the spines, I leave them half-finished in dusty, damp places for days on end because I started another book in the meantime. Books are forgiving. Crinkled pages and brown stains do not render them inoperable. Do this to an e-book reader, and you are looking at a substantial chunk of change that you just lost. I also forget aout them and leave them in public places. People tend to ignore a tatty copy of The Stranger. They don't tend to ignore a Kindle.
I can get paperbacks from a charity shop for around 50p - £2, and return them when I'm done. In this way, I support various charities, and get a cheap read.
I always wanted a library - a cozy room dedicated entirely to books and reading. The smell, texture, and the physical act of walking between the shelves matters to me. E-books reduce clutter, but - considering I am mainly an anti-clutter minimalist - I don't think of books as clutter. Rather, I think of them as a physical representation of many places I have been - if only in my head.
Digital media is rife with copyright protection, proprietary formats, and inevitably becomes obsolete. Books will last for my entire lifetime, and possibly several more lifetimes. I do not have to worry about Sony going out of business, or reformatting .kindle files to .microsoft files.
Hard-drive failure means the loss of all e-books, more or less instantly. Bye bye 'thousands of books in my pocket'. Meanwhile, physical books will survive anything except fire or flood. I've experienced two hard-drive failures in the 9 years I've owned a computer. I've never experienced a fire or flood.
Having said all that, I can see the place for e-books for some people. I think they would be wonderful for non-linear texts that need to be frequently revised and updated (e.g. non-fiction) - being able to carry around wikipedia with me would rock. However, with wireless internet becoming more common, and most electronic devices able to access the internet, we pretty much already can carry around wikipedia with us.
I treat them really badly. I drop them in the bath, I spill tea on them, I break the spines, I leave them half-finished in dusty, damp places for days on end because I started another book in the meantime. Books are forgiving. Crinkled pages and brown stains do not render them inoperable. Do this to an e-book reader, and you are looking at a substantial chunk of change that you just lost. I also forget aout them and leave them in public places. People tend to ignore a tatty copy of The Stranger. They don't tend to ignore a Kindle.
I can get paperbacks from a charity shop for around 50p - £2, and return them when I'm done. In this way, I support various charities, and get a cheap read.
I always wanted a library - a cozy room dedicated entirely to books and reading. The smell, texture, and the physical act of walking between the shelves matters to me. E-books reduce clutter, but - considering I am mainly an anti-clutter minimalist - I don't think of books as clutter. Rather, I think of them as a physical representation of many places I have been - if only in my head.
Digital media is rife with copyright protection, proprietary formats, and inevitably becomes obsolete. Books will last for my entire lifetime, and possibly several more lifetimes. I do not have to worry about Sony going out of business, or reformatting .kindle files to .microsoft files.
Hard-drive failure means the loss of all e-books, more or less instantly. Bye bye 'thousands of books in my pocket'. Meanwhile, physical books will survive anything except fire or flood. I've experienced two hard-drive failures in the 9 years I've owned a computer. I've never experienced a fire or flood.
Having said all that, I can see the place for e-books for some people. I think they would be wonderful for non-linear texts that need to be frequently revised and updated (e.g. non-fiction) - being able to carry around wikipedia with me would rock. However, with wireless internet becoming more common, and most electronic devices able to access the internet, we pretty much already can carry around wikipedia with us.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}