The other thing about electronic books
Picking up on Josh's post about the problems with Kindle and other electronic books. He expressed his concern that Amazon could develop a stranglehold on books, or that many works that might have been preserved in book forms will fall by the wayside as technology changes if they're only published electronically.
My concern is more democratic. If Amazon/Kindle has the corner on the technology, they also have the corner on what gets published.
But more than that, I know a lot of people who don't have computers and/or don't have internet access, either because they can't afford it or they live in areas where internet access is difficult to get or only dial up is available.
Right now, those people can walk into a public library and check out all the books they want for free. Most libraries can even use interlibrary loan to get books they don't have in their collection.
If some or most books are only published in electronic form, economically disadvantaged people will no longer have access to them. Even if libraries are able to provide some electronic devices for public use, the technology is too expensive to make it as widely available as books are now.
These same people already have limited access to a lot of information. I can't tell you how many times my mother has called me all pissed off because of something she saw on TV that said, "For more info, go to www dot ..." At least she knows me and I can look things up for her, but it's not the same as being able to see the info herself, and not everyone has a friend or family member who can help out.
And what do we do when the power goes out, the internet goes down, the batteries die? Wouldn't it be nice to have a good book to curl up with?
Not to mention all the scholarship based on marginalia - biographers often go through a subject's personal library to read what the subject wrote in the margins of their books and which passages they highlighted. I've enjoyed looking through books that belonged to family members and others to see what they wrote. There's the very human sentiment of knowing Grandma held this book in her hand, turned these pages, wrapped this daisy in waxed paper and tucked it in the middle of Chapter 9.
Remember the Star Trek movie where it was Captain Kirk's birthday and one of his friends (was it Bones?) gave him a copy of A Tale of Two Cities? The only books available in the future were antiques.
My concern is more democratic. If Amazon/Kindle has the corner on the technology, they also have the corner on what gets published.
But more than that, I know a lot of people who don't have computers and/or don't have internet access, either because they can't afford it or they live in areas where internet access is difficult to get or only dial up is available.
Right now, those people can walk into a public library and check out all the books they want for free. Most libraries can even use interlibrary loan to get books they don't have in their collection.
If some or most books are only published in electronic form, economically disadvantaged people will no longer have access to them. Even if libraries are able to provide some electronic devices for public use, the technology is too expensive to make it as widely available as books are now.
These same people already have limited access to a lot of information. I can't tell you how many times my mother has called me all pissed off because of something she saw on TV that said, "For more info, go to www dot ..." At least she knows me and I can look things up for her, but it's not the same as being able to see the info herself, and not everyone has a friend or family member who can help out.
And what do we do when the power goes out, the internet goes down, the batteries die? Wouldn't it be nice to have a good book to curl up with?
Not to mention all the scholarship based on marginalia - biographers often go through a subject's personal library to read what the subject wrote in the margins of their books and which passages they highlighted. I've enjoyed looking through books that belonged to family members and others to see what they wrote. There's the very human sentiment of knowing Grandma held this book in her hand, turned these pages, wrapped this daisy in waxed paper and tucked it in the middle of Chapter 9.
Remember the Star Trek movie where it was Captain Kirk's birthday and one of his friends (was it Bones?) gave him a copy of A Tale of Two Cities? The only books available in the future were antiques.
