Will the internet kill the printed book?

Anonymous Patron writes “Will the internet kill the printed book? (PArt III): More and more books are now being published electronically. Is it just a “passing gimmickâ€? or the emergence of a phenomenon that will gather momentum? E-books are gaining popularity because they obviate the need for writers to place their skills and talents at the mercy of unscrupulous publishers, the cost of production starts from “very little to zeroâ€? since there are no production in advance of demand, warehousing and shipment costs – thus eliminating the frustration of not getting their work published and read by a wider public, they offer higher royalties to authors – at least 50% compared to 10-20% for printed books.”

April 13, 2005 by Uncategorized 4

You may also like...

4 Responses

  1. lijemo says:
    April 13, 2005 at 1:05 am

    Will Television Replace Radio?
    Will photography replace painting?
    Will television obviate the radio?
    Now that we have TV news, surely newspapers are a thing of the past!

    The role physical books play will change, certainly. But vanish? Hardly likely.

    I don’t have any statistics, but I have noticed a rise in interest in BookArts, and hand bookbinding, as people become more enamored of the objectness of the book, now that it is becomming harder to take it for granted.

    At the other end of the quality spectrum, you don’t want to take an e-book in the tub with you, and the beach is risky as well. (Though I have no doubt that if e-books become more mainstream, someone will develop a water/sand-proof reader)

    So the mass market culture of the book may dwindle. But people will still want a physical copy of a much-loved tome, and a print-out just isn’t going to cut it.

    Will the culture of the book be radically changed by e-books? Almost certainly. Will physical books vanish entirely? Almost certainly not.

    Reply
  2. Bibliofuture says:
    April 13, 2005 at 1:51 am

    Coachroach
    The book is the coachroach of the information technology world. After a nuclear war when people are digging through the rubble they will find broken computers and they will also find working books. (and maybe a few coachroaches)

    Isaac Asimov wrote a great essay about the ultimate self-contained, portable, high-tech reading device of the future which turns out to be a book. t was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in January 1973, and appeared in the Doubleday collections The Tragedy of the Moon (1972) and Asimov on Science (1989) It is a must have essay for all librarians. Interestingly the essay is defeneding why videotapes will not destroy the book. (Article was written in 1973) The arguments that Asimov makes also carry over to ebooks.

    Reply
  3. Bibliofuture says:
    April 13, 2005 at 5:54 am

    Re:Coachroach
    The essay by Asimov was called “The Ancient and the Ultimate”. I meant to list that in the last comment.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous Patron says:
    April 13, 2005 at 7:53 pm

    Will the Internet Kill Books?
    I go to the internet to find information I need for work or myself. I’m looking for fast quick answers.

    But I also use libraries and read books. This process may be slower, but it’s also more enjoyable. I feel that I’m absorbing and earning and exploring at my own pace instead of engaging in a frentic search for a single answer to a single question.

    Sure you can download a whole tome…but what happens then…do people really enjoy reading an entire book off a screen that’s got your eyes so fatiqued already that you just need a break?

    How may of those E-books get printed out on paper? If not, how is the reading process different than with a printed book?

    There is a physical feel to a book, the print is more inviting when its on paper than on a screen…and then there is the fact that the brain works differently when you read a printed book versus reading it on the screen…
    I can feel the difference…and I can interact with printed material differently than I interact with electronic information. Both have different uses and purposes.

    I do plenty of searching for and reading stuff from computer screens…but it’s still a whole different experience to read a printed book and I don’t think that that’s something we will ever loose.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LISNews Archives