From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 11:02:55 -0400
Joe, interesting post. Three thoughts:
1. You're quite right that for those of us with a large "installed
base" of practices and books and notes, the present environment is not
yet one that offers suitable working space and tools. The "e-book"
today is a flat sequential thing, inhospitable to notes, hyperlinks,
and comparison of multiple objects at the same time. Lots of things I
still do only with paper. But yes, I read on my iPad all the time.
2. But look at the comment on SK from a young scholar responding to
your post by saying essentially "I'm doing fine with e-stuff". I know
others in my very bookish tribe who have converted a ton of existing
books to PDF, shared the work and the product among themselves, and
are quite happily building careers far more paperlessly than I can
imagine. So your point and my first point may reflect facts about us
rather than about ebooks.
3. I probably owe this list an updated Amtrak e-book usage report.
But I have the feeling that just in the last few months (see the Pew
report just out) we have entered an unusually volatile period in which
devices and practices and even the nature of cultural objects are
changing rapidly. The PC arrived c. 1983, the graphical browser in
1993, the ubiquitously networked PC c. 1985 (with Windows 95), and
things have been remarkably stable since -- till now. But the
smartphone and the tablet and the e-reader and their astonishingly
rapid takeup bid fair to create a working and living space very
different from what we've known. Joe, even you and I won't be the
same.
So here's my question. Will the e-book be obsolete in ten years? I
think it will. Or at least retro.
What will replace it is the post-book app. Words, graphics, video,
audio, links, "additional features". Some of them will be "movies"
with a bunch of stuff added; some of them "books" with stuff added;
and born-app content that will defy traditional description. Watch
for "record albums" that package songs with music videos *and*
featurettes and games and lyrics -- to get you to buy more and pay
more than just getting "songs" from iTunes.
It's only because I'm such a stodgy traditionalist that I think it
will take as long as ten years.
Jim O'Donnell
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 4:56 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 08:07:51 -0700
>
> For a project I have been working on, I have been interviewing a
> number of librarians about the use of ebooks on their campuses. Many
> have reported that faculty are often insisting on maintaining print
> collections. Some speculations about this here:
>
> http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/04/04/e-books-in-the-academy/
>
> I would be interested to learn what features an ideal academic ebook
> service would have.
>
> Joe Esposito
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