tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19248311.post4119568583870214402..comments2023-05-30T15:51:50.563+01:00Comments on Exact Editions: Books and will they always be Printed on Paper?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19248311.post-62389337922357278632008-06-11T14:42:00.000+01:002008-06-11T14:42:00.000+01:00There is no doubt that soon the mass digitalizatio...There is no doubt that soon the mass digitalization of books will be all the craze. Amazon’s Kindle is rumored to be the up and coming iPod of digital books after a few tweaks. As a college student I am obviously excited at the prospect of being able to leave behind the era of lugging around several heavy textbooks (and paying an ungodly amount for them) and instead viewing them online or on an electronic device such as the Kindle. Nevertheless, I personally think the buzz may be overstated. When it comes to reading for pleasure I can’t quite wrap my head around reading from a digital device. I can’t lend someone a copy of my favorite book, I can’t write in the margins, and I can’t dog-ear a page I found particularly interesting. I travel pretty frequently and when the pilot tells customers to turn off all electronic devices for the first and last 20-30 minutes of the flight, I may have to put away my iPod and my portable DVD player, but I can still read. A book won’t run out of battery, break, or randomly stop working. I already spend the majority of my day in front of a computer- it’s nice to get away from that for a while. Plus, an electronic device just doesn’t convey the art, the look, and the feel of a novel the same way a hard copy does. And finally, when I think envision my future study room filled with the collection of books I’ve been accumulating since childhood, a single digital device just doesn’t do hardy copy books justice. There are other obvious problems such as the issue of piracy (déjà vu from music piracy to which we still haven’t found a solution) but these aren’t even my biggest concern. I may be growing up with a generation that thinks iPods and smart phones and are the norm and reads all of its news online but I don’t want to give up on books quite yet.<BR/><BR/>Juhi Heda<BR/>www.brilliont.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19248311.post-11807631680948934982008-05-29T15:22:00.000+01:002008-05-29T15:22:00.000+01:00Interesting to think that some books are more suit...Interesting to think that some books are more suitable for the Kindle than other books. The kindle is still not available in Europe, but when I think about music and the ipod/itouch. I havent transferred everything to the ipod, but have representative samples of all my taste. There is no music that I am only likely to listen to in the full room version, and not want to have on the ipod. Its quite hard to think of a type of book that doesnt need to be on the web, even though I might be more likely to read it in the paper edition. So although poetry and fiction are forms of literature that (for myself) I probably would not read at length on my pc, it would still be very handy to have those editions on the web (eg for reference/search). So I guess this argues that really it all will go across to the web, even though there will still be good reasons for picking up an old fashioned book!Adam Hodgkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13855740291868776584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19248311.post-17768292070555497832008-05-28T20:21:00.000+01:002008-05-28T20:21:00.000+01:00Great post, Adam, you've really nailed several of ...Great post, Adam, you've really nailed several of the reasons it's reasonable to expect a lot of reading to migrate into digital (and more importantly, web-connected) forms. While I do agree with Richard that people like to hold, feel, treasure, give, etc. printed books, I know that I certainly don't feel that way about <B>all</B> the books I own. A good number occupy my mind and my shelf only briefly, and those are just the kind I find myself buying on the Kindle. More often than not, I'm buying the wine, not the bottle.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com