

Why I'll miss a world where books make the first move - wyclif
http://www.slate.com/id/2261955/

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makmanalp
Yeah, yeah. Enough with this. Why do all criticisms of e-readers by book
lovers seem to be overly nostalgic? The problem is obvious to me: These people
are book lovers. That is, they love the books themselves more than the
information in them. This leads to criticism like "oh, but you can't get that
feel and smell you get when you open a book" or "you can't show off your
intellectual awesomeness to your mates-to be" as opposed to constructive
criticism like "note-taking on e-readers is still much more cumbersome than
normal books". For those of us who like cheap, waste-efficient and accessible
information, this is an improvement. The rest can go hang out with the people
who complain that youth is decadent and that we're amidst insurmountable moral
decay.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Of even greater concern to me than the loss of the tactile experience that
books give to readers is that, to my knowledge, there's nothing equivalent to
the public library system for e-readers. Libraries are important for any
youth, but particularly for poor and disadvantaged youth. They're a _huge_
democratizing force, providing mountains of information and education for free
to even the poorest members of society. Thanks to the prevalence of DRM on
ebooks, I think the odds are against us seeing anything as universal and far
reaching for ebooks.

Ebooks are great for the privileged middle and upper class. But thanks to DRM
they lack the lend-ability and share-ability of real books, and they require a
relatively expensive ebook reader. Even if libraries have the ability to lend
every ebook ever published, it'll still require kids using the library to have
a relatively expensive and fragile e-book reader. With real books, all they
have to bring is an inquisitive mind.

With real books, even poor and disadvantaged children have access to books,
not just through libraries, but also through borrowing, and sharing books from
friends, relatives, neighbors, etc. And because most books are cheap to the
point of damn near disposable in our society, most kids can count on getting
gifts of books, hand-me-down used books, etc. Heck, it's pretty easy to scrape
up an enough for a paperback on an allowance, lawn jobs, etc.

This worries me a lot. While I know that the circumstances I grew up in are
very privileged compared to most of the world, we were poor by US standards.
My family was often on some form of public assistance, and there's no way in
hell I could have afforded a Kindle, Nook, etc. if such a thing had existed in
those days. Growing up, the local public library was my teacher, my escape, my
best friend. I'm saddens me to think kids in the near future may not have
access to that same wonderful resource.

~~~
kiba
What about the internet and hand-me down computers?

It's about 40 bucks a month for a decent internet connection right? Maybe the
computer is worth three furniture pieces.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Geesh! How out of touch with reality are you?!? Do you have any idea how many
families in the US can't afford $40 bucks a month? That's assuming that the
parents are supportive of buying a computer and an internet connection. If
not, the kid on his own is fucked if he's gonna need a computer and 40 dollar
a month internet connection to get access to the library.

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Locke1689
Oh come on, not enough social information? _How much more social information
do you people need?_ Want to know what someone listens to? No need to trawl
their car's floor for album covers -- not only do they have their favorite
albums on Last.fm, they have a scrobble of every play made in the past couple
weeks. There's already a "favorite books" section in Facebook, how long until
ebook readers have live integration with the rest of that?

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balding_n_tired
A similar piece by James Wolcott was posted to HN last year or so.

I do have the urge to see what people are reading around me (usually on public
transportation) and find that aging eyes have done more to impede me than
e-readers. Maybe if I rode through a more prosperous end of town it would be
different.

------
kiba
It would be interesting to live in a world where a library is just a storage
of e-reader made to look like books.

Just pick up an e-reader and it will sync to your phone looking at your
wishlist and selecting the first one off the bat. Or use your phone to choose
the book you want to read on the spot.

