The Fate of Books?

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I just read this interesting, if not troubling article, about a Boston prep school getting rid of its entire library and replacing it with digital versions accessible via e-readers. (1) Apparently, the space in which the library previously occupied will be replaced by "? a high tech "learning center," housing three flat screen televisions, laptops, 18 e-readers, and a coffee bar." The entire project is supposed to cost the prep school around $500,000!

My main issue, however, is with e-readers and the removal of the library. What on earth are these people thinking? I have to say I am a huge fan of books. I read them, collect them, make domino arrangements out of them, and build the occasional book fort?.everything. But I'm not so much of a fan of books to completely dismiss the use of e-readers or digital books. They certainly have their uses, from preserving old texts to reaching people where books cannot be delivered in the middle of nowhere (accessibility over the internet, etc.). There is also the matter of cost, for example, the cost of producing the New York Times costs as much as giving each subscriber a free $500 e-reader. (2) But to take a devoted library and turn it into a tech center is a crime in my opinion. Libraries are as much a symbol of learning in themselves rather than the books housed within it. I know what you may be thinking "if a library is a symbol of learning, then books shouldn't matter as long as information can be gathered there." Although that may be true in a politically correct way, the sheer multitude of books you see at a large library give you a sense of your academic heritage and the work and scale of human intuition and innovation. It is a spacial representation of what civilization has achieved (and its mistakes). That is something you cannot truly extrapolate from a digital library measured in gigabytes.

So the question stands? what is the fate of the book? I like to think of it in terms of the automobile and the horse drawn carriage. In the early 20th century, there were many companies making horse drawn carriages? and people bought them. But then the automobile comes along and changes the dynamic of transportation. People do not take to cars at first, but slowly switch to automotive transportation. Stables close, carriage manufacturers go out of business, the automobile becomes the dominant mode of transportation decades later. Is the same true with e-readers as well? Will the e-reader automobile replace the horse drawn book carriage? Or will the e-reader turn out to be a Stanley Steamer (the automobile, not the other thing..LOL!).

Personally, though technology has improved vastly in the area of e-readers, the technology is not up to the standard of a full on physical book replacement. E-readers need electricity, they need battery replacement, they are not as durable as books, you cannot write on the pages, etc. But technology is changing. One aspect bringing e-readers closer to the physical book are digital ink technology.(3) Essentially, its digital script on a screen as thin as a thick piece of paper. Not bad, but it could still use some work. But it may be that technology will reach the level where books are obsolete?. But not today at least.

On a side note, since when did taking out all the books in a library and replacing them with computers and a coffee bar cost $500K (read first article)! Considering that a Kindle is at most $500 each, a decent flat screen is $3000 each, laptops are as much as a university would stock (40 at the most) @ (realistically) $1000 a piece, I don't see how this adds up to $500K. The rough tally is $58,000. Given, the school is probably modernizing with all things connectivity, which I'm sure is not cheap, is cannot be more than a quarter million dollars (including demolition and construction), that leaves a few hundred thousand left over. So what does this mean? The most expensive?. coffee bar?ever.(4)

1.Ereader -- Engadget
2.Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle
3. E-Ink Advertising: Digital Generation Driving Digital Technology - Adpunch
4.Search Results donuts theONbutton

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@VideCorSpoon,

I love books, I love how they feel in your hands and I love putting them up on my bookshelf and admiring my growing collection of books! I also have a large collection of books in Pdf forum, but I much prefer having a physical book. E-Reader's have much improved but they can still be a bit tough on the eyes for my liking! I dont think they will ever be able to replicate having a physical book for me, but Im sure future generations will take to them like a fish to water.

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@RDanneskjld,

I can't imagine reading a whole book off a computer screen. It will take me some getting used to. I don't plan on beginning that process on my own initiative. I find that the new technologies come to you if you don't pursue them. I stuck with cassette tapes til 2000. I didn't know what an MP3 player was until I found that it was included in the new car we just bought.

Plus, I'm pretty hell bent on building up a serious physical library of my own.

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@VideCorSpoon,

What happened to film versus digital images?
What happened to the old vinyl LP, cassette tape, and now CD's?
Anyone have video on demand, amazon U box, amazon with roku?
The notion that books will escape the same fate is wishful thinking.
How many college students want to cart 20 or 30 textbooks around instead of one all purpose reading device or well equipped netbook.

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@prothero,

prothero;88352 wrote:

What happened to film versus digital images?
What happened to the old vinyl LP, cassette tape, and now CD's?
Anyone have video on demand, amazon U box, amazon with roku?
The notion that books will escape the same fate is wishful thinking.
How many college students want to cart 20 or 30 textbooks around instead of one all purpose reading device or well equipped netbook.

Film is still the best media to use in terms of photography. Though it is not as convenient as a digital camera, film gets some very high quality shots compared to the digital equivalent as far as I am aware. As for cassette tapes and that kind of stuff, I suppose those things had to be replaced at some point or another in terms of quality or practicality. But that's where the books wins the issue though? it is still the most useful and practical. The book weighs more than the kindle, but it won't run out of battery. You can write notes on a book and not on a kindle. Those are big issues that cannot be answered by e-readers?.yet. As far as college students and books compared to e-documents, honestly, you end up printing the stuff anyway. And on that note, it ends up costing a lot more and a lot less efficiently as well.

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@VideCorSpoon,

No, I don't think they'll ever completely replace books, but I could see a virtual take over, over time. Readers aren't always practical, not everyone has or wants one, and there's something about that physicality of holding the book; marking the pages, indexing and referencing a book you're reading. I have found; however, that the light reading I do - reading I'll likely never want to refer back to or pass on - is almost better in my palm. There I can set the auto-scroll and just set it down and watch.

And I too have enjoyed building up and referring back to my library.

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@VideCorSpoon,

Picture this. More and more editors of scientific journals switch to e-only versions of their periodicals. These e-versions are NOT stored on the computers of the institution (e.g. university), but permanent access to them is guaranteed by contract. But you don't have the hard-copies anymore en you don't have a e-copy of the journals on your own computer. Clever market strategy, no? I let you guess what will be the implications.

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@VideCorSpoon,

I find it disturbing. Libraries without books? It's unfathomable.

Plus, My eyes get strained while looking at the computer screen for too long. With a book I can read hours on end. With a computer monitor, I have to look away every five minutes to stop getting dizzy.

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@VideCorSpoon,

the university coffee bar is probably given out as a contract job to some alumni's relative-like dick cheney or somebody equally as deserving and responsible.

and when your grandchildren see you reading a book one day and ask 'what's that?' then you will know-that is how it happens. they grow up never having seen a book, so it isnt like anybody really ever let go of books or forgot about them. they just slowly cease to exist. like the horse drawn carriages i see where i live, the kites children play with in empty lots, the empty lots themselves, and the people who sit outside on their porch and the neighbors who stroll by and stop and sit for tea and a chat. i see it all disappearing before their eyes ...

what about the feel of natural wood? you know, that stuff things were made out of before plastic happened? what about the sound of unamplified musical instruments?

nobody cares about the good old days, going forward...only the people that remember them and they too will be forgotten.

a long time ago, there was a television commercial with a talking head in a box-that is what humanity evolved into supposedly because there was no more need in the far distant future for a body. i dont remember what the commercial was about, maybe exercise. but dancing...singing...these things are no more a part of life in america, at least not among the people that i lived around back there.

star trek and the replicator-instant artificially contrived food that tastes perfect every time. never break an egg or smell bacon sizzling in the pan-nevver hope it turns out right...never take out the trash or wash the dishes...i guess it is only a point of view. whatever we grew up with we think is normal and when it gets replaced, like it always will, we are sad. would we even know if we lost something of value?

is this thread really only about books?

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@VideCorSpoon,

Books will still be around, just like candlelight is still around. But of course, light bulbs have replaced candlelight as the primary source of light. Just as these e-readers will one day replace books as the primary source of literature.

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@VideCorSpoon,

For a few more ideas about this subject I'd like to refer to the last postings of the thread "What's in your (philosophical) library?", more particularly the conversation at the end between Catchabula -proud as an ape on his huge collection- and VideCorSpoon. Many of the arguments in that conversation still stand. We better not repeat ourselves too much ;-).

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@VideCorSpoon,

My feeling is that books will always be around..maybe not as the primary source of information but there will always be niche markets...myself, I can't see me without books...A side-note- I may never catch up to catchabula's collection size, one hell of a head start...but that's not gonna stop me from trying..!!!! Surprised

h-really:

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@VideCorSpoon,

There is a certain sense of antiquity with a book. Books hold special memories, and the scent of fresh paper on the first page of a book makes the experience of reading something special. E-readers seem like nonsense to me, there's nothing special, it's just a mechanical device with no smell or memories in it, and no nostalgia. Maybe it would be efficient to use one, but I wouldn't feel any accomplishment after reading a virtual novel. I can buy one of those and read anything stored on it, I don't feel proud because I didn't buy the actual book, I didn't feel deserving because I didn't spend money for the particular book, and I don't have a good feeling after reading.
-Isn't reading a book supposed to serve as a getaway from technology?

I even miss the 90's, all of that cool stuff being invented, great music, Seinfeld, more family time and less stress.

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@VideCorSpoon,

It is inevitable that digital will replace the analog. I don't get the newspaper, I get my news online. I'm surprised that no one mentioned the fact that paper is required for so many books and with such the environmental issues of global warming, why doesn't paper become an issue? Because it can be recycled now? You can make paper from other products? Or the fact that the electricity to power the digital comes from coal plants anyways so we really aren't saving anything by getting rid of paper.

I am a big fan of pdf and I belong to an online book resource group that we actively meet online using voice over software and discuss a variety of topics. We even have open mic nights where a selected book is read from and discussed. What is the point of mentioning this? Well I always find it funny how people blame the internet for removing the social aspect from our lives when in fact it actually has the potential to bring everyone closer together. Is reading a book cuddled up in your bed a social endeavor? No but no one ever questioned this at all for being anti social.

I have used the digital medium in lots of ways. Using the text to speech, which still could use some touch ups but if you can get use to it, you can actually multitask while listening to a book. It actually removes the eye strain problem. Also there is the Uniword programs that flash one word at a time onto the center of the screen so you don't need to move your eyes and it ends up allowing you to read much faster than the traditional way. This system can be easily incorporated into a headset with digital display for relaxing while reading.

As far as nostalgia goes I think it would happen anyways through the digital progress. You might not be able to fully asimulate into the new technology but your children will probably find paper books outdated.

Does anyone still use cassette tapes?

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@VideCorSpoon,

Cassette tapes..?? As a matter of fact, yes. Because believe it or not there are some things that have not been put onto anything digital yet. Plus there are still 33-1/3 LPs being made. Does anyone remember- beta-max, the original laser-disc, stylus disc. My point being you may take away the general need for things, but there will always be a want for them. Basic economics. The nostalgia market is huge. One other thing rubs me wrong..the inference that books are environmentally wrong, everytime you use digital you are consuming energy...every single time..so I'll take my antiquated books and my candles and read whilst you digital people use up the energy...at least until a blackout...

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@PoeticVisionary,

We talked about this topic in my PoliSci class and it was quite interesting. Although, an important issue that I dont think anyone, yet, has provoked is the idea of corruption. Getting rid of books seems to be getting rid of a tangible part of history. For if all knowledge becomes digital then how easy, or hard, would it be to completely wipe out a section of knowledge just by clicking a few buttons? or distorting, editing, manipulating the original? I guess book burning in the 21st century requires no flames whatsoever!

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@VideCorSpoon,

An excellent point Kielicious. As it is history is written by the victor, now with digital books whom ever will have access will become the historian. Now before anyone says anything about how many safeguards there will be let us remember hackers, these son of a b!tches get into anything. Excuse me while I go read a book...

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@VideCorSpoon,

I'd like to reproduce the following old posting here, as the thread in which it appeared is indeed difficult to find, though the present thread is in many ways a re?teration of the discussion of that moment. The text is rather extensive but perhaps placing it here could provoke some fresh thought on this important subject. What are books? Life!

Hm, quite a mix of emotions again. Vid, you know what you are doing, don't you? Enabling me to talk about books here? Could be dangerous for all of us. What if I couldn't stop talking anymore? What if I started loosing all sense of relevance and proportion? What if I entered the realms of the awfully anecdotical, like telling you about that goldmine I once found, being the uncredible collection of a deceased booklover? Why can some "do" with only a few books? Because the association-field, the content -both actual and potential- of each separate book is metaphorically "infinite", my pathetic project being to collect an infinity of infinities. Take Shakespeare for example: take him to that island, and you'll take the world with you (you know the old question of course: if you could take but one book with you to an uninhabited island...?). Ok, I guess we understand each other, and I will not give an extensive reaction on your posting, especially not about the technicalities of conservation. Personally I have only a few books with brittle paper, but I am more concerned about the general conservation-conditions in a house that is also inhabited by humans. This may not be the best temperature or the best of relative humidity, and there is also too much light here; I can almost hear the molecules snap. No, just a few random theses now, that may be provocative enough to invite a broader audience. Mind I tend to use some (?) rhetorical exageration, but everybody here will be able to see that in the right perspective. On the Forum one must speak loud enough to be heard, and these matters are not unimportant...

-From the conservational point of view the computer is often the enemy of the traditional book. The massive digitisation drains funds and energy from the careful conservation of a medium tested by the centuries, being the paper "codex" or hard-copy book. Hard-copy books are vulnerable and will always have many enemies, but (quality) paper is also relatively resistent and parchment is almost eternal. And this while the various ways of digital coding and formatting are still hardly established, and will almost certainly become a huge problem in the future. The present day pre-occupation with digitisation suffers from a short term perspective, and is in fact largely determined by the personal ambitions and the commercial interests of those involved. Some librarians are career-minded and would do anything to stay in the spotlight. Thousands of books becoming less important than their power-points.

-Books are free to go their own way through the world, eventually to be found in a mildewed cartboard box (*). The digitisation of the book may lead to the control of a few firms and their assets (G..?) over mankinds cultural heritage. In fact G... doesn't give a d... about the "real value" of the books they digitise, or about mankind's cultural heritage. They only want to consolidate their market-position, create a return-on-investment, get break-even and increase their stock value, all this on a worldwide competitive information-market. And digitisation happens to be another way to attract "traffic"; the rest is for the marketing departement, where they learn to use the right words towards librarians and to manipulate their ideology. In fact the whole thing is just another economic power-play and culture is not only a market, it is becoming a hostage. I hope people realise that after digitisation G... will try to destroy all hard-copy books, because in spite of all efforts they will not easily destroy by themselves. Hey, somebody has a rusty old gun for me? ;-)

-The digitisation of the world's books has only a relative worth from the point of view of access and indexing, but it is NOT stimulating reading. On the contrary the computer hollows out reading, being the time-consuming and effortful assimilation of massive amounts of information (War and Peace is in the dutch translation over 1000 p., I overcame it ;-) ). The computer reduces the immense "Gestalt" of the book to a number of excerpts or citations. And once the young have found what they were looking for, they will hardly look any further, and hardly suspect there's a context or even a whole world behind the excerpt. By the way a little poll: who has ever read a complete book on a computer screen? Seems that reading War and Peace like that is just a perceptual problem for old farts like me, but I wonder...

Yes, old fashioned, reactionary, loving the smell of them, still seeing the magic, still feeling the discovery, here he is: the boy who was once dazzled by books and stayed for hours on the attic, reading, browsing, becoming the book, the book becoming himself, his heart, his ever-lasting love. I'm an old fart indeed, and I distrust computers, simple as that, but the book keeps me young at heart and passionate, as a reader as well as a collector. I think we somehow agree folks, and I'm happy to be around. But about books, and today's world... what are your thoughts??

(*) "Habent sua fata libelli". Books have their adventures (destiny?).

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@PoeticVisionary,

PoeticVisionary;88472 wrote:

everytime you use digital you are consuming energy...every single time..so I'll take my antiquated books and my candles and read whilst you digital people use up the energy...at least until a blackout...

Well this isn't entirely accurate. If you dig up some coal and burn it to produce steam to turn a turbine to generate some eletricity and it is that which you are calling energy, let me ask you, where did the coal come from? The sun. Everything in a sense is solar energy. So those books that you think require no energy, well that isn't actually true, because it requires lots of energy to make a tree, cut down the tree, process the tree, produce the paper, create the ink, apply the ink, bind the book, package the book, ship the book, store the book, drive to purchase the book, and purchase the book. So where was this save in energy again?

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@Krumple,

You do have a good point Krumple. But a book requires manufacturing just like an e-reader requires manufacturing. However, the e-reader requires constant manufacturing (electrical production) in order to maintain itself where the book does not. Also, keep in mind that a book decomposes (like our friend the lowly piece of coal which is made of decomposed vegetation carbonized). It in a way recycles itself. The e-reader does, but over a longer period of time.

This whole spiel reminds me of electric and hybrid cars and how green people think it is. Ironically, the batteries needed to store the electricity generated (eco-redundantly by a gas powered engine in the hybrids case) contribute more to the carbon footprint than regular gas powed cars. When you manufacture a hybrid, you basically build a battery that itself is mostly non-recyclable, but the manufacturing and transport required to build and deliver it to various assembly plants around the world creates pollution equivalent to the life time of a gas guzzler x5. In effect, a green car is superficially green, but creates more pollution in its conception than a gas guzzler does in five lifetimes over. So as far as the book is concerned, the energy savings is there when compared to the e-reader.

Long live the book! LOL!

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