The traditional paper book is not in danger of being killed off by an electronic gadget, the British Library said. Sony will launch an electronic book in Waterstone’s stores across the country on Thursday.
The £199 slimline Sony Reader can hold up to 160 electronic books and the capacity can be increased using memory cards. But Stephen Bury, head of European and American collections at the British Library, said the book lover and pleasure reader would not give up the traditional paper book for an electronic gadget.
e-book wave
I don’t agree with Bury’s logic. I do think that as the software, hardware and licensing ages and gets past some hurdles, e-Books will be omnipresent. How many people still write letters with pen and paper? Maybe a few, but most written communication is surely done by electronic means these days.
I don’t see it as a risky investment for libraries to prepare for the future of eBooks. These eBooks will evolve, of course, but will more and more be a force to be reckoned with. Pleasure readers, maybe not all but a great majority of them, will switch to using eBooks in not too many years.