Yap I’m totally agreed with you. It’ll be better experience to read direct from book not from e-reader or e-book. Anyway you allocate pretty interesting article here. I really enjoyed it. Thanks pretty much

Grossman’s article is interesting, but there is a problem with his argument.

The “e-book readers cannot allow for non-linear reading” argument is only somewhat true, and is based almost entirely on the current technology for e-readers rather than where the tech is going.

For example, it is currently more difficult to pick a random spot to start reading an e-book than a printed book — going to a random spot currently takes a great deal of tapping upon the “page forward” button of your e-reader, as opposed to simply opening the book to a random spot. Likewise, going to different sections is currently more cumbersome in an e-reader than a printed book (which makes using the ESV on my Nook in my Bible study class almost as cumbersome as hauling my enormous large-print LSB to class).

This argument, however, does not take into account the fact that tablet technology is determining where e-readers are going, and the limited e-reader with its ability to go (primarily) only immediately forward or backward will soon disappear as it’s replaced by full-featured tablets with the same ability to utilize hypertext and other technologies as desktop computers.

Where I agree with Grossman is on the main point of his article: the importance of allowing for non-linear reading. I engaged in a great deal of research on this topic when writing my MA thesis on developing multimedia Bible studies for adolescents, and the ability to use relatively inexpensive and easy-to-access research tools that allow for both simple linear reading and extensive contextual reading and research is a game-changer. As you said, Pr. McCain, being able to carry your library with you is fantastic; as tablet technology improves, being able to run things like Bible library software on increasingly portable computers will greatly enhance not only “simple” reading, but in-depth reading and research.

You make a valid point about the problem of obsolescence with digital technology. While non-proprietary formats like ePub will delay this longer than the Kindle’s proprietary format, the problem of obsolescence is nonetheless significant (as can be seen in the ongoing push to convince governments and businesses to switch from Microsoft’s document formats to Open Document Format). At the same time, however, physical books are more prone to wearing out and falling apart, or becoming damaged, and therefore needing to be replaced. The obsolescence argument therefore applies primarily to books that only receive limited use.

I love physical printed books, and happily believe they will continue being produced for years to come, but digital publishing is a leap forward that easily equals the technological progress of Gutenberg.

I’m with you on this one. I recently picked up a Kindle and love it. But, I keep wanting to thumb through actual paper pages. And, like you wrote, I really dislike the idea that I have reading rights to something out on the Cloud, but not actual ownership of the book itself.

What would make ebooks better in my opinion is the ability to share to one person at a time for as long as they’d like. I miss the ability to share books via ebook format and the option for some books to be shared for 14 days to only one person in the ebook’s life is crazy to me.

Thanks for the post Paul.

I’m still a hard copy guy…but there are a few I like to have soft copy for convenience.

I have a Kindle and I love it as a supplement, another venue, for reading. It has allowed me to read books that I’ve always been interested in, but never had the time or space for. In my “Completed” folder for this year are 16 books, including The Mutiny on the Bounty, The Education of Henry Adams, and On Being a Theologian of the Cross, besides the ones I’m continuing to read throughout the year: God Grant It (daily devotions from the sermons of CFW Walther), Reading the Psalms with Luther, and of course, the Book of Concord. I also have four versions of the Bible and a Greek interlinear with Strong’s numbers.

I’ve never read this much since my school days, and that’s saying a lot from a father of four with a full-time job. I think the reason is that I can take it with me wherever I go, and fill up all those unused minutes with a few pages of reading. It adds up after a few months. I’m also able to read it with no hands (so I can read while eating lunch, for instance), and the handy night light makes the occasional sleepless night productive.

I don’t think e-books will ever completely replace paper books: There are certain books I still want on paper – a Bible, textbooks, and books with a lot of graphics. But for the vast majority of reading, e-books work just fine. Please keep the Kindle titles coming, CPH! (I’m planning my next purchase to be Melanchthon’s Commentary on Romans, something I’d never drag around with me on paper!)

Your post reminded me of a favorite cartoon. It was a picture of an ancient library. At the “scroll return” window there was a sign: “Be Kind. Please Rewind.”

No, I’m not into e-books, for several reasons:

First, I can get most of the books that I want free from the library. E-books, for the most part, are not free.

Second, I fly on business, and e-readers must be turned off shortly after boarding. They may not be turned on again until the flight has reached a specified altitude. Some flights that I take never reach that altitude.

Third, when I travel, I take books to read while at lunch or dinner. It’s not so much a problem if something is spilled onto paper, but spilling water or something else onto an electronic device can ruin it.

Finally, if I need to refresh my memory, I can much more easily flip back pages in a book than on an electronic device.

When I can get my favorite e-book signed during my favorite author’s book tour, I’ll be sold. Until then, I’ll take a hard copy, fresh, mangled or otherwise.

I just visited Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org), the best site for free e-books and learned that its founder, Michael S. Hart, died this week. He is credited with inventing the e-book in 1971 when he typed the text of the Declaration of Independence into a computer and sent it to other users on the network. Here’s the brief obituary: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart

I was skeptical about e-readers once, myself. There’s nothing that beats the smell of a brand-new book, and the sound of opening a book for the first time, or the feel of the pages. But then my husband bought me a Kindle for my birthday, and I quickly became hooked. I currently have about 100 books stored, and have read several of them. (Interestingly, I got quite a few of them free, thanks to Amazon.com.) I also discovered this blog through Amazon.

I do hope, however, that reading doesn’t turn into an either/or type of entertainment, like listening to music or watching a movie at home. (Funny, it took me a long time to buy my first CD, and then only did so when vinyl became almost impossible to find.) One disadvantage, IMO, to e-readers is the difficulty with flipping pages or trying to locate a specific passage. But, as has been said, the state of the industry will soon find a way around that. And I have been known to buy both a hard-copy version and a Kindle version of the same book. I will say that it’s so nice to be able to throw my Kindle in my purse, and pull it out on the plane or in a waiting room.

A few weeks ago, I was unable to attend church on a particular Sunday. So, I tuned in to this blog and read the summary of the day’s lessons. I then opened my ESV and searched for the day’s Scripture readings. After that, I read a few prayers from Luther’s prayer book. All on my Kindle, while sitting on a park bench enjoying God’s creation around me.

Can I say something from the writer’s side? Once you have written a book, an author is faced with something that amounts to a “Book Cartel”: the big publishers who could get your book into actual bookstores won’t look at your book becasue they force you to go through a literary agent who wants 15% of you BUT they won’t even get back to you for six weeks. Then, if the agent successfully pitches the book, you, the one who worked on the book for so long (average fiction book is two years) get something like 3-5% of sales.

Kindle takes 10 minutes to publish, gives the author 70%. My publisher, Smashwords, gives me 85% and allows me to also publish on Amazon.

when i upgraded to a “real” smartphone i downloaded kindle just for kicks. i have discovered that i really enjoy having my “books” with me wherever i go.
i will never give up reading and owning real books, however, and have so far only downloaded free books from amazon. i am very reluctant to pay for something i can’t put on my bookshelf!

Paul,

This post reminded me of an article in the Chicago Tribune on July 26th

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-26/news/ct-talk-keilman-dead-books-20110726_1_lenny-abramov-sad-true-love-story-shelf-life

Here’s betting that books will have a much longer shelf life than bookstores

July 26, 2011|John Keilman

There are plenty of reasons why Lenny Abramov, protagonist of Gary Shteyngart’s dystopian novel, “Super Sad True Love Story,” is a loser. He’s out of shape. He dresses atrociously. His äppärät, the novel’s version of a juiced-up smartphone, is way behind the fashion curve.

But what truly marks him as a bozo is his love for books — or, as the novel calls them, “bound, printed, nonstreaming Media artifacts.”

“Duder, that thing smells like wet socks,” a hip youngster snorts when Abramov opens a volume of Chekhov stories on a trans-Atlantic flight.

I thought of poor Lenny the other day when I heard that Borders, that onetime colossus of bookselling, was going out of business. It was no surprise: The ailing chain closed about 200 stores a few months ago, and the surviving locations I visited grew rather threadbare, as if readying themselves for oblivion.

The cause of death, many experts said, was the Internet. Borders simply couldn’t hang in a digital age where paper and ink is starting to seem as popular as wet socks. Bookstores appear fated to become rarefied boutiques, the equivalent of vinyl record stores or foreign film houses, as the real action moves to the cloud.

But if that’s it for bookstores, what about the book itself? Is it also going to be supplanted by its virtual cousin, and if so, should anyone care?

My guess is that printed books are here to stay, and the reason goes beyond simple nostalgia. It’s because reading on paper is fundamentally different — and, I think, superior — to reading in an electronic format.

I realized this after I got a Kindle a few months ago. It’s a good device — love that built-in dictionary — but it imposes a tyrannical inflexibility on the act of reading.

If you want to go backward to refresh your memory about a character or jump ahead to consult the endnotes, you either endure an annoying bout of button-mashing or give up. That can make reading anything more complicated than an airport thriller a frustrating experience.

Alex Thayer, a University of Washington doctoral student in human-centered design and engineering, has studied Kindle use among academics. He found that it was great for “receptive reading” (going from start to finish in a straight and superficial line), but not so hot for “responsive reading” (interacting more deeply with the text to build or modify knowledge).

The Kindle also appeared to inhibit a process called “cognitive mapping,” where the brain relies on cues such as dog-eared pages or a passage’s actual location in a book — say, roughly a third of the way through — to help store and recall information. When a book is nothing but scrolling lines of text, he said, those cues disappear.

Thayer said some people in his study became so frustrated with their Kindles that they spent their own money on paper copies of texts they had received for free electronically.

“E-readers right now are not designed to support the work that academic people do as they read,” he said.

For those of us who read for pleasure and self-improvement, other research suggests that the imperfections of paper and ink might make reading a more contemplative act.

Jonah Lehrer, a blogger for Wired.com, summarizes it this way: Literate adults do most of our reading almost automatically, without much thought. But experiments have shown that the brain’s dorsal pathway, which forces us to pay attention to the words before us, activates when we encounter something unusual, such as an inky smear.

“I worry that, before long, we’ll become so used to the mindless clarity of e-ink — to these screens that keep on getting better — that the technology will feed back onto the content, making us less willing to endure harder texts,” he writes. “We’ll forget what it’s like to flex those dorsal muscles, to consciously decipher a literate clause. And that would be a shame, because not every sentence should be easy to read.”

Even if technology addresses these concerns, dedicated e-readers seem likely to give way to tablet computers like the iPad, which can do a lot more than display text (even Amazon, which has stoutly defended the Kindle’s book-centric design, is reportedly developing a tablet). How many of us will hang in there with “War and Peace” when, with the swipe of a finger, we can be hurling Angry Birds instead?

No, we’ll always have a use for bound, printed, nonstreaming Media artifacts. Their two covers impose order on a chaotic universe of information, and that’s something that will grow only more valuable in our data-soaked future.

The Internet might have killed Borders. But it won’t kill books

I’ve also been hesitant to join the e-reader ranks because of the upgrade issues. Even when a book wears out, it can be repaired. In addition, I may one day pass my books onto my kids (at least the ones worth keeping), which would not be very possible with having only e-copies.

I suppose I ought to be ashamed to say I love my Kindle, and it’s become my favorite vehicle for reading (I do prefer paper books for scholarly research). I’ve found that the beloved textures of paper and board and cloth don’t really make all that much difference to me. I don’t expect paper books to disappear, but I think the wave of the future is e-books. Just my opinion.

Even though I enjoy the convenience of ebooks on my Kindle, I still worry about paper books dwindling. There is no substitute for paper books especially for complex formats like study bibles. At least for me, it’s calming to hold a paper printed Bible to reflect and mediate on it in a chair by a window. I don’t think paper books will disappear, but they may become more expensive and produced with quality materials.

Also, there’s the control part. It could happen that all your ebooks could be taken away in a flash from your device by malicious intent. This method has been demonstrated when Amazon took away everyone’s copies of an unauthorized edition of some of Orwell’s works from their Kindles to its later regret.

I’ve heard of many people getting rid of their paper book libraries once they got their e-reader devices. I will not do that. If the power goes out and you can’t recharge your device, then what? Also, I have bought both paper and ebook copies of the same book published by CPH, so that I can carry some of the Lutheran library with me without always requiring taking the paper copy along.