From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2012 17:02:55 -0700

I found the comment by the young scholar on SK to be fascinating.
Perhaps "young" is the operative word, as he claims to be able to read
PDFs easily on handheld devices.  I cannot do this myself without
glasses, but I can read the print edition of the NY Times without
glasses.

I realized recently, while packing up books for a move, that I had now
purchased my last new print book.  I will still buy used print books,
and my world would be diminished if I could not browse a used book
store.  But for new books?  I think I am now all-digital and unlikely
to revert.  Smartphone, Kindle, iPad:  what a range of choices!  On
the other hand, I don't do the kind of research myself that I was
reporting on in my blog post.  I think that is the key issue, not "p"
vs. "e" but the kind of reading one does.

Joe Esposito


On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 3:33 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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