Fun Stuff > CLIKC
e-readers are amazing!
pwhodges:
Sorry folks! I'll try to get it more right in future. I guess I shouldn't have let the fact that someone is leaving the board as a result of that rather shitty tiff influence me.
I've stuck the thread back together, so carry on as if I hadn't interfered.
jhocking:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 30 Jan 2011, 13:28 ---someone is leaving the board as a result of that rather shitty tiff
--- End quote ---
oo oo gossip
:evil:
jhocking:
If it'll help I'll start a new account so I won't have such a high post count anymore.
Papersatan:
--- Quote from: AnAverageWriter on 30 Jan 2011, 10:25 ---This, and the other walls of text hastily written in defense of the e-reader, have unfortunately missed the point. They say that the printed word will not "disappear" when in reality it's already occurring- as was mentioned before, authors such as Warren Adler have already begun the transition to "digital only" formatting, forgoing the printed book altogether.
I suppose it was too much to expect anything from digitalophiles here to actually appreciate the advantages books have to offer beyond "their smell". After all, in a hundred years, when every ebook on the market has been forgotten and the only records of our current lives will be the fragmented remnants viewable on some holodeck somewhere, NOBODY would ever want to preserve anything we've written today! No, sir, put those books in the fire of time with LPs and the Nickelodeon. After all, today's books can't satisfy our desire for instant search gratification or be censored to remove "bad" words (ala Huckleberry Finn) at the push of a button.
--- End quote ---
I confess my post was long, because I have a lot to say about the issue. I hope that you actually read past the first paragraph though because I did address the questions you raised about obsolescence which is a real concern for digital formats. Many of the problems keeping file formats up to date arise from copyright issues, and that is a challenge society is still working on. Either way a grad student spending days in a library trying to download an obsolete file format is really no different that one spending those same days trying to discern the script on a decaying piece of parchment. We lose cultural works all the time, it is inevitable. Every year some Grad student writes a theses on the lost works of "X" that they found in a musty pile in the back of some private library.
As far as the advantages of print, I didn't say the only advantage printed books have is their smell. It is however frequently brought up as a reason e-readers are not good. I prefaced that statement with my history of discussing this issue because I was trying to show that it is brought up by many"defenders" of printed books, regardless of the setting or profession of the person. I agreed that printed books have advantages. You have mentioned one author who is going digital only, there are also authors who refuse, and ones whose works cannot be translated to an electronic format. For example Mark Z. Danielewski's work "Only revolutions" which makes continuous use of its physical form and would therefor be difficult/impossible to translate to an e-reader.
I agree with Jens that there is a parallel between vinyl culture and print culture and that is why I predicted that a market will emerge for quality printed editions of books as a market has emerged for vinyl.
Also the assertion that the printing press just sped up the production of books and didn't change and replace them is wrong. When was the last time you held a book that was written by a scribe on parchment? One with out page numbers, or a table of contents, or an author? The printing press completely changed what a book looked like, what it was made from, what was written in it and who owned them. The printing press made books smaller, cheaper, and faster to produce this opened up the medium allowing entire new genres to emerge and eventually made room for the profession of "author." The "print revolution" is often cited and though I have read arguments that no such thing existed, one cannot deny that without the printing press we would not have the book culture we have today.
jhocking:
--- Quote from: AnAverageWriter on 30 Jan 2011, 11:36 ---I think you've misread, or I may not have been clear enough. I was referring to the replacement of printed book text. I wasn't addressing additional "features" at that point, I was talking about supplanting, not just supplementing. The printing press supplemented book printing. Many people believe that e-readers (including their features) supplant the printed book.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure what you mean by "features" other than "things that I don't care about." The distinction you make between supplanting and supplementing is just a matter of perspective. The people who fought printing presses sure didn't see them as supplementing the books they already had. Similarly, just because you don't see e-readers as supplementing books in their current form doesn't mean other people (eg. many of us) also don't see them as supplementing.
I mean, you're absolutely correct that many people see e-readers as supplanting printed books, but that is the same as the situation kat raised which you were responding to, when some people viewed printing presses as supplanting hand-written books while others viewed them as supplementing books.
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