This past summer, a friend and I began weekly rendezvous at Starbucks as fellow aspiring writers and caffeine addicts. She told me about this gadget, much like an iPod or an MP3 player, but that holds hundreds upon hundreds of books. I didn't quite understand it at first, how could you read tiny font on a tiny handheld device?
In Thursday's New York Times, the article "Off the Shelf, Onto the Laptop, Libraries Turn to Digital Books" touches on the new technology. I suppose one could look at this as a revolution in the digital age from traditional printing and cumbersome library shelves toppling with books to a single computer holding all the same amount of information, in a much smaller package. I'm reminded of growing up, learning the library card catalogue system and then being annoyed at the irrelevance of it when the new digitalized catalogue system replaced it in my teenage years. Looking back, I feel old already!
With no printing, warehouse or return costs, e-books are cheaper to produce and distribute than hardbacks and paperback prices. Browsing over list prices, e-books seem to cost the same as regular paperbacks. E-books can be downloaded into Macs, PCs,Sony Readers and mobile phones. This is the modern multi-tasker's dream. You can check your emails, chat, and read the next installment of your favorite series all in one device! In reference to students, could textbooks be bought as e-books? Instead of toting a backpack bursting at the seams with 10lb books, could they all be held in one slim laptop?
I have a love of books that is borderline "book-worm." I love picking out a new book or an old book, plucking a fresh best-seller from the orderly shelves at Barnes & Noble or rummaging through piles for a dog-eared paperback at the fleamarket. I love that "new book smell," the smell that rises off the pages as you flip them over your thumb, the papery noise. Yes, I'm a proud bookworm.
I can't speak for everyone, but I know for me personally, books are a way to escape regular society. Books are a way to escape our every day realities of MP3s and emails and Facebook and less relevant things. Its a break from the tedious staring contests we have with our computer screens for hours on end writing midterm papers, studying, researching, etc.
Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I've had one too many bad experiences with technology. Maybe I'm too well-acquainted with that dropping-pit-of-your-stomach feeling seeing the text "lost/corrupted file" pop up on the screen. But I can't see myself buying into this new technology anytime soon. I don't quite trust computer technology enough to hand in my printed books for digital e-books.
What if eventually all books of hard print were e-books? What if all digital systems someday crashed? All I'm saying is that it would be a sad and sorry day when Shakespeare's plays, Hemingway's books, and Whitman's poetry all became lost because of "technical difficulties."
In Thursday's New York Times, the article "Off the Shelf, Onto the Laptop, Libraries Turn to Digital Books" touches on the new technology. I suppose one could look at this as a revolution in the digital age from traditional printing and cumbersome library shelves toppling with books to a single computer holding all the same amount of information, in a much smaller package. I'm reminded of growing up, learning the library card catalogue system and then being annoyed at the irrelevance of it when the new digitalized catalogue system replaced it in my teenage years. Looking back, I feel old already!
With no printing, warehouse or return costs, e-books are cheaper to produce and distribute than hardbacks and paperback prices. Browsing over list prices, e-books seem to cost the same as regular paperbacks. E-books can be downloaded into Macs, PCs,Sony Readers and mobile phones. This is the modern multi-tasker's dream. You can check your emails, chat, and read the next installment of your favorite series all in one device! In reference to students, could textbooks be bought as e-books? Instead of toting a backpack bursting at the seams with 10lb books, could they all be held in one slim laptop?
I have a love of books that is borderline "book-worm." I love picking out a new book or an old book, plucking a fresh best-seller from the orderly shelves at Barnes & Noble or rummaging through piles for a dog-eared paperback at the fleamarket. I love that "new book smell," the smell that rises off the pages as you flip them over your thumb, the papery noise. Yes, I'm a proud bookworm.
I can't speak for everyone, but I know for me personally, books are a way to escape regular society. Books are a way to escape our every day realities of MP3s and emails and Facebook and less relevant things. Its a break from the tedious staring contests we have with our computer screens for hours on end writing midterm papers, studying, researching, etc.
Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I've had one too many bad experiences with technology. Maybe I'm too well-acquainted with that dropping-pit-of-your-stomach feeling seeing the text "lost/corrupted file" pop up on the screen. But I can't see myself buying into this new technology anytime soon. I don't quite trust computer technology enough to hand in my printed books for digital e-books.
What if eventually all books of hard print were e-books? What if all digital systems someday crashed? All I'm saying is that it would be a sad and sorry day when Shakespeare's plays, Hemingway's books, and Whitman's poetry all became lost because of "technical difficulties."
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