A Bookless Future seems unlikely

[primsong]

I noticed a news article about a 'library' in New York that was entirely bookless - they just had displays of e-books and allowed checkout of readers loaded with five books apiece.  They were touting it as The Future, naturally.  Like The Future is always supposed to be a *good* thing, and we should all accept it will inevitably come.  Implication being that if we don't accept The Future we are backwards, knuckle-dragging 8-track listeners who still think digital watches are a pretty cool thing.

As for me, I see a phrase like "bookless library" and my entire inner being goes "Nope nope nope nope nope nope. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen."

Too many strikes against the e-readers - like not being able to read with half of one eye open and the rest of your face buried in a pillow.  And your brain processes the information on a lit screen differently than when it is on a printed page.  Buying them for .25 at a garage sale. Reading an obscure story from the early 1900s that can't be found any other way. And then there's batteries (or lack thereof).  And the scent and feel of books.  And. And. And.

*hugs (paper) book*  Nope nope nope.

Comments

[lurkingcat]

Articles like that make me cross. Physical books are not bad and there is a pleasure to holding and reading one that is not a thing that an e-reader can replicate. That said I belong to the school of thought that says that there are uses for both physical and e-books. No one seems to want to write articles about that though...

I grew up in a family where every time we moved the first thing that went up in the new house were the bookshelves and the book crates got unpacked straight after the kettle and the mugs. battlehamster grew up in a house where the bookshelves are packed two and sometimes three deep with paperbacks and an expedition to get at the books at the back of the study may require assistance from Indianna Jones. Now both of us live in a house with two cats, my comics collection, his live roleplay kit and all the books... We are running out of space for more books. There is a bookshelf on the stairs. Most of the comics have to live in the attic. The graphic novels take up almost an entire wall of the dining room. I bought the shelves in the hallway because they could be stacked two deep with books. Bags and bags of books have gone to charity shops* over the years and yet the house just keeps filling up with more books.

And then there's the library in my rucksack... That's the collection on the -reader. I spend about three hours a day on public transport and I get through it by reading. I am never going to run out of something to read on a bus again. No, the e-reader is not in any way perfect and there are many things about it that I would like to see improved. But it's portable and the books that live on it do not take up any space (and quite a few of them were free thanks to Project Gutenberg) and all of those things are important to me too. It doesn't smell or feel like a book but the E-ink technology does at least get round the backlit screen issue even if it's not quite the same as an actual book. It's heavier than an average paperback but it's lighter than a hardback and mine only needs recharging about once every three weeks which means that I can charge it up before I go on holiday and not worry about yet another set of cables. I've got one elderly relative who's a convert because she needs large print books and the things she wants to read aren't always available in large print when they're newly released but on an e-reader she can buy it straight away and just increase the text size.

I still find it harder to navigate through an e-book if I'm looking for a particular reference. I've yet to find a way of sorting e-books properly on the thing - or at least not a system that makes sense to my particular brain. So absolutely not a perfect solution for me. But it's a solution for some of the time and that will do me nicely.

*I think the US equivalent is Goodwill? Maybe? But it is very late and possibly I shouldn't be leaving essays on other people's blogs when I can't even manage a cultural translation.

[primsong]

It's hard to believe there can be such a thing as too many books, but I must admit a body does need to be able to still walk through their house. ;-) I relate! It's so hard to let go of them too, though I manage to fill a small sack now and then. There have been times when I've wondered how people's houses could look so neat and clean and then realized that there was no reading materials anywhere...perhaps this will be the natural habitat of the e-reader, among neatniks who always wished they could read but books are too messy?

I see the advantages in having a tool that allows you to take an entire library with you on a bus trip, or magnifies things for those of failing sight, but to have that niche completely replace the classic paperback? Nah. Nope. Never.

[primsong]

Oh! And yes, we have a variety of charity shops here too, Goodwill is the best known (and most corporate), we prefer giving to Salvation Army ourselves since all the proceeds go to their programs instead of to the CEO. :-p