| Be kind to the Kindle, ebooks have a long way to go |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Monday, 26 November 2007 | |
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Most detractors compare electronic books unfavourably with printed books: "Printed books are dirt cheap, never run out of power and survive drops, spills and being run over. And their file format will still be readable 200 years from now," was how one commentator put it, re-iterating the usual arguments. Or as Stan put it: "It's no accident that e-readers to date have been abject failures in the market place. They're not as good as the books they want to replace. They don't have the longevity, they can't be loaned or exchanged, they need batteries and maintenance and they don't add value to the reading experience, They're not multimedia devices; they're just words on screens." Well Stan, they do display pictures, but not in colour, yet. Though that is sure to come. And if giving access to a vast library that would be hard to access in printed words does not add value to the reading experience then I don't know what does. Books are not dirt cheap. And the price is inversely proportional to popularity. To produce a high quality hardback for a very limited print run is very expensive. They might survive, drops spills and tyre tracks, but they don't handle flame and floods very well at all. And they might be readable in 200 years, but only if they are produced using high quality materials and kept in controlled environments. Many of my 30 year old paperbacks are already decidedly fragile. |
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