Break Your Children Off of Books Today
When I had to learn SQABasic for automated testing, I downloaded and printed out the 902 page reference guide, three-hole punched it, and put it into a three-ring binder. The only nice thing about this otherwise idiotic and wasteful act of mine was that I printed it two-up and double-sided to conserve paper.
Now I’m in the process of migrating into Database Development. Having to learn the intricacies of our relational database, I downloaded the Ingres 2006 SQL Reference Guide. It’s a PDF file, and it’s taking every ounce of my willpower now not to print it out.
In the comments section of his July, 2007 article, A Defense of the Book, Alan Wall argues:
I value computer technology, and could not function without it (here I am, after all) but I am yet to meet anyone who would rather read Paradise Lost on a computer screen, or read Dickens on a train from a laptop.
He’s correct that there is a strong resistance to people reading entire books electronically, but this is not proof that print-books are intrinsically superior to e-books. The resistance has much more to do with what’s familiar to us. Print books are incredibly inefficient and devoid of features when compared to the same literature placed in an electronic medium.
There’s no “Find” function in a book. I can’t cut-and-paste my favorite quotes and blockquotes into other files, I have to transcribe them by hand or scan them with text-reading software. I can’t store a book online and reference it from any computer in the world, including my cell-phone.
If I cite a book in one of my posts, anyone who wants to check my sources has to call the library or check the book’s availability online. Then, if the library doesn’t have the book, they call another library and have it sent over. At some point, the scholar has to physically visit the library to pick up the book, and then physically visit the library again to return it.
In a utopian future, libraries will offer nothing but free Internet access and experts to guide people to books online. Romanticists get cold-chills at such a future, as if we are somehow losing something classical rather than gaining something magical. It’s the same nostalgia that keeps us from adopting the Metric System and Dvorak Keyboard layouts.
We didn’t have E-books when I was a kid, so now I must unlearn my habits and port my mind to this Information Age paradigm. Don’t let your personal resistance to E-books prompt you to saddle your children with the obsolescence of printed texts. Get them reading books online today, and put the world’s library on their bookshelf.
Project Gutenberg is a great place to start, with a collection of over 25,000 classic text available for free online.
Couldn’t agree more. Everything that I read nowadays, I read on my 52-inch TV.
I look forward to LASIK.
Comment by ClintJCL — April 16, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
Why I don’t like e-books:
There are no champions for e-books: Hemmingway, Twain, Gibson, and King will always be associated with paper as far as I am concerned. When I picture an author, it is someone who uses pen, paper, and a typewriter. I don’t think the romantic view of an author has shifted to one that bangs away at a computer and uploads his thoughts to a website. In my head, that view is reserved for bloggers, who for some reason are a different breed of animal.
The technology: E-books are highly functional, easily accessible, and packed with features. Find, bookmark, share, link to like information, highlight, copy and paste. It seems every time I turn around there is another feature available. Great, but all I want is information. I don’t want to have to upgrade and learn a new feature-set when all I have to do is use the language and motor skills I have already invested in. I think in this case simplicity wins.
-BMF
Comment by BMF — April 16, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
Keep holdin’ onto those rose-tinted glasses ;) Oh, and those quills. :P
Comment by ClintJCL — April 16, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Man, I prefer reading books on my desktop/laptop. I did it all in high school if I could find a free version on the computer.
Comment by Nick Hamden — April 16, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
Ebooks are easier for me to read on my pda while laying in bed in the dark. When I get tired and decide to put it down, I don’t have to wake myself up by leaning up to turn on the light – I simply turn off the pda and put it down on the headboard/bedside table/floor/bed/whereever. Done. When I have an actual book and get tired, I end up waking myself up by having to shuffle around to turn out the light. I end up laying there not sleeping and then eventually I have to turn on the light again and read the book just to get tired again. Then the whole thing starts all over again..
Also, when I read books, I have so much trouble positioning the lamp to point right at the page without glaring in my eye. And it’s hard for me to get comfortable with an actual physical book. It strains my neck, or arms, or something always ends up uncomfortable. The ebook was just easier.
However, I don’t mind reading actual books if I don’t have it on ebook, but I think if I had a choice, I’d choose ebook, hands down.
Comment by Carolyn — April 17, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
I mean turn off the light.. d’oh
Comment by Carolyn — April 17, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
When a really good e-book reader arrives on the scene I’ll be more than interested — for now, my laptop works well enough as the device on which I read huge amounts of content …
However, I can’t agree with “Print books are incredibly inefficient and devoid of features when compared to the same literature placed in an electronic medium” — or, rather, I agree but its wrong-headed and beside the point!
The key thing about the codex (the “normal” book) is that it is absolutely perfect at quietly doing just what it does. It is devoid of features — beyond being comparatively cheap, and eminently portable and readable — because beyond being cheap, portable and readable it doesn’t need to do anything else! It is perfect because of its lack of features.
In a device-drowning world, the simplicity of the book is not a weakness but a huge strength.
Comment by Mark Thwaite — April 21, 2008 @ 5:26 am
comparatively cheap, eminently portable, and readable? haha
An e-book is cheaper. The cost of copying a text file is lower than the cost of killing a tree and printing out a book. A txt file doesn’t weigh anything, and requires no fuel to get to your house.
And e-book is more portable. You can read it in the dark under your covers without a flashlight. Hell, you can use the e-book as a flashlight itself!
Similarly, the same situations where you can read an e-book but not a real book (what if the real book is encyclopedia-sized?) are situations where I would argue the ebook is more readable, because a normal book would not be readable at all (under the covers, in the dark for example).
You can also adjust text size, which is a big deal. If you’ve ever worked at a bookstore, I’m sure you know of the old people phenomenon — Old people come in asking for large print books, but they want large print books that AREN’T huge encyclopedia-sized tomes. Which of course is asking for a bit much — you simply can’t increase font size without increasing the book size and killing even more tree.
Unless it’s an e-book.
Comment by ClintJCL — April 21, 2008 @ 9:22 am