I'm a frequent reader of digital books. Any of the bestseller here-today-forgotten-tomorrow stuff that I consume while on the treadmill just works better on my iPad, because I don't have to hold down pages or turn them. The ability to read them for free by checking an e-book from the local library (with a similar ability -- not free but at a great cost reduction -- from Kindle Unlimited) only adds to the convenience.
But for stuff I care about, trees have to die. That's not as bad as it sounds, as a lot of paper made today comes from trees grown for the purpose and harvested the way we harvest wheat to make bread. In other words, there's no evil CEO somewhere cackling while watching minions harvest millennia-old sequoias to service the public's insatiable need for James Patterson schlock. Plus, when I buy a book I can be certain that it will say the same thing tomorrow that it says today -- and altering a digital book is as easy as 1, 10, 11 (base 2).
And it turns out I may not be alone. Sales of e-books and Kindle reading devices seem to have plateaued for the moment, which caused Medium writer M. G. Siegler to opine about the death of the "death of books" meme. Perhaps it's the physical actions of holding the weight of the book in both hands, of turning a page, of watching the thickness of the pages of what has happened replace the thickness of what is to come. Maybe it's the fact that there's no frickin' battery to charge.
Isaac Asimov, in an essay I can't find online right now, once suggested that the ideal "cassette" or replacement for a book would come with its own viewer and be self-powered, requiring no hookups or special devices to enjoy. Such a system already existed, he said, in the form of the book itself. A simple knowledge of reading is all that's required to get started, and there is no external power source required. I'm not sure if Asimov's prediction will hold true or if some new technology will make more inroads against the sale of real printed books, but for now, it seems like the book will not quietly follow the CD and DVD into a completely digital format.
Plus, you can't stack Kindles to build a fort.
1 comment:
Well, I tend to be a "late adopter" on stuff like this, but I remember opining that I have a few books published 100 years before I was born - and I can still open and read them, no problems. However, many of the digital files pertaining to my dissertation (finished 16 years ago now) have decayed to the extent they are now unreadable by MS Word. And I have slightly older files of some papers I wrote for classes that I can't access at all...an actual paper copy of something will never become obsolete.
I'm weeding my collection heavily right now; most of what I'm getting rid of are modern novels that I'll never read again, or the cheap paperbacks of forgettable mysteries. I just have to find somewhere to donate them all....
Post a Comment