Books - The Last Chapter?

For a long time I’ve been an avid reader, consuming around 2-4 books a month. Only recently though have I seriously considered the purchase of an e-reader such as Amazon’s Kindle, although the device has been available for some years now. My reluctance in adoption of the technology rose from the tactile loss of the physical book. I suppose despite my many years being involved with IT and love for technology and gadgetry alike, this is the one place I considered myself “old school”.

I simply love the idea of a library; it evokes something inside of me, a quest for knowledge perhaps, but above all discovery. I adore the idea that I am able to peruse at my discretion the variety of books and note their colour, condition and titles that capture my attention and that I could choose to randomly flick through whichever pages take my fancy to find something of interest, for me a great gauge of whether or not I will enjoy the book and its contents.

Some retailers, such as Amazon, have made some good progress in mimicking this; allowing users to “peek inside” providing a table of contents, both front and back covers, and a snippet of chapters to provide a good “feel” for the book.

I like the idea that a lot can be found out about a person by what books they read and likewise a lot can be said about me by the books I read. I suppose that can still be the case albeit in a bizarre digital format like a virtual bookshelf.

I am fascinated by the digital divide and this is one of the rare occasions where I truly sit on the fence and perhaps would traditionally slant toward the physical equivalent for nothing more than the nostalgic notion of having a book in my hand, it tells you something about the reader, what they are reading, how far they have got, their facial expressions that one may even correlate these two notions especially if you have already read the book.

My perceived OCD would not allow me to make notes in my books for I believe them to be too precious to be defaced with my inane and random nonsense nor would I allow any persons to bookmark them by dog earring the pages. I simply won’t have it!

If anything, depending on what I’m reading and especially if it’s something I want to learn I make copious notes. The ease of transfer and my habit of not writing in the book itself may make it easier to take digital notes and transfer them digitally to a repository for later editing appeals to me greatly.

My other concern when considering an e-reader was cost; digital “copies” if you will are far less costly (I would assume) to produce and distribute than physical equivalents where e-books were only at best 5-10% cheaper not all that long ago but that all seems to have changed and now e-books are selling at reasonable 40 to 70 per cent less than physical iterations.

I would much relish the idea that I could purchase a physical book holding on to the notion that in my later years I could build a small library and refer to these, as well as purchase a digital copy at a much reduced price for digital storage. That being said, the fantasy of having a physical library has now been lost on me; I simply would not be able to afford such a large and varied collection as I would love to have.

I stumbled upon a BBC show last week [April 2012] while putting together this very piece and found it enthralling “Imagine – Books: The Last Chapter”.

The show made an interesting notion that Apple, Amazon and Google would be the biggest publishers in the next five years, something I think was a long time coming considering the plays they have made to be where they are. I truly believe they will dominate the publishing arena though I believe it may take them longer. Not through the lack of technological advances but through the lack of adoption.

Treasure the object they themselves have character – an ideology provided by the programme, while true I believe that overall though, much like the web that inspired it, content is king and the medium almost becomes irrelevant.

Of course the other problem is which reader do you use? Some books can simply be read, some may even need to be interactive such as The Elements as seen on the program available as an App on the Apple iPad. Although it is a best selling physical “static” book there is much merit in making such a book using multimedia for a better understanding and interactivity of the learning experience. Many people cannot simply learn by reading but by doing.

The conclusion – it must be said that after watching the program, writing this article and weighing up the pros and cons, I’ve been converted. I am going to buy a Kindle and I look forward to it!

NB: The original blog post was written in early 2012 and republished (almost) as is.