We have a new addition to the argument for electronic books!
"connect a pair of video glasses and lie in bed reading via the glasses ... flipping the pages"
iPhone + video glasses = best ereader?
http://bit.ly/bBW2WS
The author didn't quite manage it, but the idea most certainly has a compulsion about it!
Other arguments for ebooks, you can cite, annotate, bookmark to your hearts content. They are mobile (given rights management limitations). They should be cheaper (the cost of a best seller can be up to 80% for the transport costs alone).
The antithesis goes something as follows.
"the pleasure of reading on paper ... The most immersive reading experience comes from paper", Richard Curtis, p. 8, Library & Information Update, June 2010 (Not so much nowadays in these days of the Internet but most certainly in the past you would have found me in the evening adjusting the lighting, pouring a glass of wine, and sitting down in front of the fire with a book from the library. Our values change though.)
"the printed book is not about to disappear, because it presents a large amount of material conveniently"
http://nyti.ms/bktalg (I can't cite I'm afraid at the moment the person who pointed out that information transfers more quickly from written word to human using a paper book viz. an electronic screen.)
"eBooks present some unique challenges to the “personality” of books"
http://bit.ly/cYAGrq
"...most information isn't online. It's a difficult concept to measure, but some estimates put the proportion not on the internet at 85%, much of it in books."
http://bit.ly/aU0lTw (Note this is a 2007 article.)
A conclusion then perhaps could be that libraries in the distant future could provide ebooks where readers value the strengths of electronic reading, paper books likewise, but also maybe both for the same book and at the same time! (for in depth study).
Gareth Osler
Library Web
http://libraryweb.info
PS Library Web (aka myself) is fed up with his computer being hacked and his web accounts and web pages defaced and vandalised :| I'm going through a continuous install / get progressively hacked / reinstall... cycle at the moment. It can be very time consuming and doesn't bode well for integrity. If anyone has any suggestions until I can get the site developed prefessionally... (If anyone has any suggestions on getting the site professionally developed as well then say hello also :)
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