Digital Books...

It feels as if we are on the verge of a major shift to digital books (see my earlier thoughts on this), though I'm not sure that the Amazon Kindle will be the catalyst here (from the photographs, it doesn't have the design elegance of anything that Steve Jobs produces for Apple). The digitization of millions of books by Google is clearly going to affect all readers one way or another (even those who like to read from paper - since print on demand is clearly a more efficient process than storing tons of printed books and then pulping a percentage of them). There is an interesting article by Jonathan V. Last called 'Google and Its Enemies' which summarises the main issues nicely. What usually gets left out of breathless sci-fi pieces about the digital book revolution is the effect on writers. Whilst research gets easier, getting paid for writing  gets more complicated, and in most cases much tougher. Or else the future is presented as a world in which everything can be downloaded for nothing. With large players like Google prepared simply to ignore existing copyright legislation and widespread copyright infringement on the Web, long-tail writers could be in for lean times...What writers need is fair payment for use. That will keep us writing. Collective licensing of the kind administered by ALCS is probably our best bet.

Meanwhile I'm trying to train myself to read more on screen since the illiterate of the future may well be those retros who refuse to deal with anything except paper. I've found www.dailylit.com very useful in this respect.

Comments

[Drew]

Good thoughts about it. The practical issue I continue to have in the very inflexibility of the medium itself. Until bookmarking pages can be graphically represented even as we dog-ear or tab pages for future reference; until the medium is as durable as paper that can withstand the rain, sun and dust that we expose books to in a variety of reading situations; until we can write on the screen with as common and ubiquitous an object as a pen; the value of its storage capabilities is useless. It needs to be a medium to promote active reading and engagement with the text and right now it continues to be hopelessly passive. Tablet PC's are simply too fragile to be of any use. Digital paper was a failed experiment as well...

To this end, digital books are just as useless to me since I read everything but the work of fiction (which I do not read that often) passively as the medium dictates you process the material.

[Nigel Warburton]

Thanks for the comment. Not sure I agree about e-books' promoting passivity: hyperlinks and use of Wikipedia and Google while reading together with note-taking tools are all now possible. Paper can only give us the last of these. I take your point about durability though - you can get away with dropping books on a hard floor...

[Carol A]

I don't know why current ebook devices are fragile (or are they?). My MP3 player seems almost bulletproof, and would need to be with me as an owner! It also has a screen, albeit rather small, with an extremely scratch resistant facing and a metal back plate - perhaps a slightly larger version of this (it's a Sandisk Sansa) would be a good design?
As for royalties - I think the book industry is going to have to move to a similar model to that used by the music industry. Or perhaps we need a complete redesign of the royalties and copyright laws, a global model rather than a country by country system.

[Matt M]

I doubt that e-books will replace the printed word any time soon - habits are hard to break and there's a certain aesthetic quality to reading a book. But if they could get the price down and come up with a decent screen (my eyesite is already pretty knackered from staring at computer screens for too long) I'd give serious thought to one. My suitcase is always weighed down with books when I go on holiday and an e-reader would be great for all the out-of-copyright books on the net as well.

[Nigel Warburton]

You might be interested in the Google Book project. They are making out of copyright books available free. See the description and links here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/download-classics.html

[avagee]

You might be interested in http://www.booksinmyphone.com they give away public domain and creative commons books packaged up to be read on regular dumb cell phones (java capable). You can install OverTheAir or via PC. The screen size is small but very functional and enables the ultra portability of adding books to something you carry in your pocket anyway.