Could the convenience of eBooks replace paper bound ones? Though still not acknowledged in dictionaries, the meteoric rise of electronic books suggests it is possible, but their selection tells another story.
Being able to take out books at the library no longer requires a visit to the actual place. Increasingly libraries are allowing people to take books out virtually to be read on computers, ipads or dedicated e book readers.
The Cote-St-Luc, Dollard-des-Ormeaux and .. (forgot the other) have a combined system so if you're a member of one of those municipal libraries you could just go to their site and enter your card number and password and bang you've got a book on your reader that will disappear in two weeks, no need to renew because it's no longer there after 14 days. Surprisingly there are sometimes long waits for these books, so I don't fully understand how it works. Westmount is getting an independent set of books available in the early fall but there'll only be about 250 in the collection.
The BANQ has books available as well but I suppose my problem is trying to find one that I'd like to read. I think the last book I tried to read on a computer was The Black Swan but I found it long and boring even though the idea is neat.
The problem with ebooks is that the ones that are easily obtained are stuff that you don't really want to read, Alice in Wonderland, Dubliners and Moby Dick. We'd like some recommendations on ebooks that are currently available in the local library system that are worth reading. Anybody?
Being able to take out books at the library no longer requires a visit to the actual place. Increasingly libraries are allowing people to take books out virtually to be read on computers, ipads or dedicated e book readers.
The Cote-St-Luc, Dollard-des-Ormeaux and .. (forgot the other) have a combined system so if you're a member of one of those municipal libraries you could just go to their site and enter your card number and password and bang you've got a book on your reader that will disappear in two weeks, no need to renew because it's no longer there after 14 days. Surprisingly there are sometimes long waits for these books, so I don't fully understand how it works. Westmount is getting an independent set of books available in the early fall but there'll only be about 250 in the collection.
The BANQ has books available as well but I suppose my problem is trying to find one that I'd like to read. I think the last book I tried to read on a computer was The Black Swan but I found it long and boring even though the idea is neat.
The problem with ebooks is that the ones that are easily obtained are stuff that you don't really want to read, Alice in Wonderland, Dubliners and Moby Dick. We'd like some recommendations on ebooks that are currently available in the local library system that are worth reading. Anybody?
I'm torn. They are cute little gadgets, and at least you can curl up with them, unlike a laptop of a desktop computer. But once you're spending a hundred dollars, wouldn't it make more sense to wait for a cheaper more general computer of the same sort? Then you could do other things besides read books.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger problem is that I don't see a great discount for ebooks. So you spend money on the reader to read them, then spend money for the books, and have nothing tangible for those books.
I buy most of my books used, and any that I do buy new are paperback. So virtually any bestseller I can get for a dollar or so, as long as I'm patient, I can buy a lot of those for the price of an ereader, and buy a fair number for the price of an ebook. Of course, if things tip too much towards ebooks, then the source of cheap books disappears.
What really intrigues me is the books that I can't get, either because they just aren't available, or because they are too uncommon to be cheap. That seems the most tempting reason to get an ebook reader.
For instance, I can get my great, great, great grandfather's book about the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest, he being there 200 years ago from right now to help build Fort Astoria (Astoria Oregon celebrates it's bicentennial this summer). Or Washington Irving's "Astoria" about the same topic.
Project Gutenberg has Tom Corbett Space Cadet books. I had an almost full set (it was a small series) forty years ago, and I foolishly got rid of them in the early seventies. The only time I've seen any since was at Westcott Books (about to close so the bar at Fort can expand) circa 1994, where I saw two volumes in the window for five dollars each. They stand up well, I'd like the full set. They fell out of copyright, there is a period in the fifties or so where that happened.
Or I can read "The Year When Stardust Fell" another juvenile science fiction book that didn't really see later editions. That's at Gutenberg too.
There are other interesting books like these at Gutenberg, they aren't all old old classics. (And some of them seem to be there because an author died and nobody was around to take care of things, so there were no later editions because nobody around who owned the rights. For older books, we often get them because there were later, and often larger, printings.)
For that matter, Google apparently has intriguing titles that are out of copyright. I can think of some technical books that I'd like to have around (though, the word on ereaders is that they often don't do graphics so well).
Of course, one should read the classics, though those can usually be had for a dollar or so at used book sales. If I haven't read any James Joyce yet, despite having some books around, I'm not sure the novelty of an ereader is going to change that. One has to be in the right mood for a given book. And the reality is that if no books were written from today onward, there'd still be more than enough books that we'd never get to read them all.
Michael
I've been downloading ebooks from the NYPL ever since I lived there.
ReplyDeleteThe way it works is the library system buys a license (instead of buying the actual thing, natch) for a certain amount of copies.
If they've only got two licenses, then only 2 people can download the book at once -- and it comes with a DRM expiry date.
Handy if you like it.
Kevin
Great post Michael. I don't have an ereader and the only one I monkeyed with was infernally complicated, I spent several hours trying to load books on with no luck, so I'm not entirely sold yet.
ReplyDeleteBut I love the idea of being free from publishers/distribution and other barriers to literary entry.
I ghost-wrote a short book that's on amazon, it seemed a short process. I want to write several more, in fact I am sorta tempted to stop doing this site except to tease little three dollar 20-page coolopolis booklets once a month, (which would be pretty top quality stuff, if I did it).
So yeah, count me as one of those who is very keen on the whole trend. I love books too but they can be obtrusive and gobble up quite a bit of space in a home, so bookshelves be gone.
Since the emergence of our "Information Superhighway", book stores have been slowly biting the dust, and the Quebec government certainly didn't help matters several years ago when they greedily began to charge sales tax on books.
ReplyDeleteThat, and the steadily-increasing cost of paper and newsprint has also driven the price of magazines and pocketbooks to ridiculous heights, so that I rarely purchase them new if I can find them used.
Of course, there are excellent websites where books can be downloaded for free. For example, check out Archive.org. Not only many books can be found there, but also a superb treasure of vintage radio programs such as Suspense, The Whistler, etc.
I'm not keen on buying an ebook reader. I might rethink it later, but it would be just another toy to lug around and potential damage and anyway I'm not one of those who needs to "bring my home with me" wherever I go.
To digress, I have no need for a cellphone and even leave my credit card at home, thus I am not "on an electronic leash" as it were. Yes, I'll carry my debit card with me and use it sparingly but that's about it. When I'm away from the house, I consider myself "on vacation".
Indeed, whenever I leave the country I store my laptop in a safe place before I go. I need to get away from it from time to time. After all, there are plenty of internet cafes. Certainly, if your profession requires that you be connected, then you have no choice.
The notion that you "must be connected" no matter where you are has clearly become more of a compulsion (and a proven danger in moving vehicles!) than a convenience and it is only in recent years that sociologists are beginning to realize how problematic our reliance on such technology has become.
Only just now I actually conjured up an image of someone on their death-bed making and taking last-minute cellphone calls. It's probably happening in reality somewhere right at this moment!
The thought of our kids becoming such "tech junkies" seems to have become a self-fulfilling prophecy of that "TekWar" TV series of 95-96.
@UrbanLegend
ReplyDeleteMulroney started that tax on books when he introduced the GST.
-Kevin