The end of books as we know it?

[Great War truck]

I was speaking to a well known publisher earlier this year and he predicted that the production of books as we know them will come to an end in just a few years with everything going digital. Having given this some thought I can not believe this will happen. I am very proud of my shelves of books and can not imagine feeling the same about a kindle.

 

I think e books are ideal for chick lit and mummy porn but I can not imagine that this would work for the sort of military books that appeal to me. However magazines such as MMI and CMV are available electronically so maybe I am wrong. Does any body here buy e-books or subscribe to e-magazines. If I am going to spend £30 on a book I want something that takes up space on a shelf not electrons on a computer. Maybe I am being old fashioned. Anybody like to persuade me to get a kindle?

[Bob Grundy]

Higher powers than the likes of you and me are always trying to scare us, vested interest and the lust for gold is the norm.

The answer to your question therefore is 'no'.

[.303fan]

buy? no...

i have em on my kindle for free.

i might buy if prices go down and publishers get cut out of the chain.

[fv1609]

Well 2 years ago I bought my wife an e-book reader from the well known chain of newsagents. The promise was 5 million free books (plus new releases that you would have to pay for).

 

In reality it meant there were 50 or so classics like Dickens that were complete. Other "free" books were only bits of books & that only became after discovering the missing chapters had to be paid for. So some very underhand marketing there. So now it just gets used for youtube clips & a few solitaire games.

 

The MOD is well into e-AESPs, e-JSPs etc rather than the printed form, now doing what they thought fiche was once going to achieve. Electronic is obviously cheaper to produce and logistically instant. Not so good if you like collecting these documents.

 

As far as convenience goes, I thought having pdfs of lists of my books, EMERs etc would avoid having to carry round a large file at shows to cross check to see if I had a particular book in my collection or check a parts list. It has not really worked because on most occasions the sun is too bright to read the screen & it can take a long time to search an electronic document & in the hustle & bustle of bargain hunting it is far easier to flick through the pages of my printed files.

 

The only benefit is if, on some unexpected occasion, I spot a book of interest or a MV part I always have the phone with me that I can search through when I wouldn't be expecting to carry the big index around..

[Tony B]

The batteries don't go flat on a book! You can hide behind it, have several open and spread about at the same time. And you can't use a e- bok to light a fire or deal with a distressing stomach upset! I like books, though digital manuals are useful. You print the pages you need and it dosen't matter if they get covered in muck.

[mike65]

Personally I think there will be a market for both.

I have a tablet thingy which I use for reading books. You know a novel which does not have pictures.

Mind you some of the new e-versions of novels are more expensive than the paper version. Obviously the price of pixels will take over from oil.

I still like having a real book for the real things (non-fiction) especially if it has lots of pictures and it is something real.

A book is much better if you need more than one or keep having to jump around pages to cross reference stuff.

 

More importantly when dropped on the floor the book still works.

 

Not only that you do not see many reports of people being mugged for the hard/paperback book they are reading at the bus stop/station.

 

Mike

[andym]

I've virtually given up reading "real" books any more, everything is on my tablet including scanned versions of my MV manuals. That said, there's a time and place for everything - sometimes it's far easier to leaf through paper and there are some books (particularly reference ones) that aren't available as ebooks anyway.

 

It's interesting though that my reading has increased enormously. These days I'm more likely to be sitting with the tablet in the evening than watching the TV.

 

Andy

[arcot1751]

I seriously hope this doesn't mean the end of "real" books, to be honest I find this overwhelming desire to have everything on computers very worrying if ever there were some terrorist clever enough he could close down virtually everything in this country electronically and without firing a shot simply because of it's reliance on computers and most of the younger generation's inability or lack of need to write things down. Computers are great things but in the wrong hands dangerous and we only have to look at the recent banking fiasco to see that one glitch and the country grinds to a halt ! It's a time bomb which will come back and bite us :shocked:

[Pzkpfw-e]

For "Fire & Forget" books, I can see it happening, ditto for the likes of encyclopaedias etc, but how long will an e-reader last?

A book lasts for virtually eternity, I've got books from the 1940s, my mum's got one (OK, very battered) from the 1700s. If e-readers are like other chipped devices, they'll fail within 5 years and your library will die with it!

[Erolek]

I swapped to e-reader about 2 years ago for all non-reference books. All fiction, memoirs, etc. Initially it was due to lack of space for any more books, but it's actually much more convenient to use than the paper book.

Kindle's e-ink display is fantastic. It's actually readable in bright light as much as any book (as opposed to LED screens of tablets), and 2 months life of battery on single charge is decent enough.

 

I'm partially converted now (I still gather paper editions, though).

 

Greetings

Eryk

[fv1609]

You can't doodle in an e-book!

 

The doodle below is of a young lady who looks contemporary to the publication & brings the reading experience alive that an e-book never can. You can't recreate the feel of the well thumbed paged, the rusting paper clip, the patch of old mildew, the smell of musty paper etc. What a shame I no longer have any proper second-hand book shops in Salisbury. We have one bookshop of a major charity that only seems interested in sanitised modern books, saturated with Gulf War fantasy novels & the THREE second-hand bookshops are no longer there.

 

Anyway from Queens Regulations 1859 this soldier's delightful dream lady.

 

[Enigma]

I prefer the type of book which which you can knock our a Mammoth and still be able to read it afterwards...

[Great War truck]

I agree. If you cant hit a mammoth with it and still read it then it is obviously not a real book.

[Erolek]

OtterBox heavy duty case for Kindle should do the trick...

 

Greetings

Eryk

[ferretfixer]

The batteries don't go flat on a book! You can hide behind it, have several open and spread about at the same time. And you can't use a e- bok to light a fire or deal with a distressing stomach upset! I like books, though digital manuals are useful. You print the pages you need and it dosen't matter if they get covered in muck.

 

 

AND you can use a book placed under a table leg to cure a Wobbly Table!.......... Try doing THAT with a Kindle!..

[.303fan]

most kindle owners have 3 legged tables, live in a area where mammoths are under control and like to have 800 books, manuals etc to read while no trees got used. downside is: who owns the digital books you buy? resale option?

why that huge amount for a digital book? and why vat on a digital book while there ain't vat on paper books?

[mike65]

There is one other thing I have found.

 

I have, for example, a paper copy of Batty Sheene's biography, I can lend it io anybody and trust they will return it.

I also have a load ot Cliver Cussler and Tom Clancy novels I can do the same with.

The worst that can happen is I do not get it back.

 

Now the only way you can borrow my Kindle books is if I give you access to my account with password, credit card details in it. Yhere is no way that is happen, sorry folks but regardless there are things that you need to keep control of. However it seems the USA has a lending library system, so what about the rest of the world?

 

Which is a real PITA as I used to book share with a couple of people at work. I suppose that is the sign of progress to make people more independent or is it insular?

 

Mike

[mike65]

AND you can use a book placed under a table leg to cure a Wobbly Table!.......... Try doing THAT with a Kindle!..

 

Oh yes at long last a use for that high price electronic device you dropped and broke. Who said there are things modern technology cannot do?

[Erolek]

Yes, lending and sharing ebooks is tricky field. I didn't research it further in case my head would explode.

 

I just like my Kindle because I can always have something to read with me wherever I go (and with hand luggage size restrictions it's important factor) and can save valuable shelf space for books with pictures.

 

Greetings

Eryk

[Tony B]

Will also be a complete ****** for Charity shops!

[Pzkpfw-e]

What happens when you drop your Kindle in the bath?

[ferrettkitt]

Charity shops receive more books than they can deal with, they tend to keep the best and then pass the send rest onto book dealers who then sort and recycle the worst books.

 

It will a decade if not longer before books disappear. The environmental lobby and technology will kill off books and magazines.

[Great War truck]

The environmental lobby and technology will kill off books and magazines.

 

Have the environmental types started attacking printed matter yet? I thought that they would be more anti electrical gadgets. I have never had to put a book on to charge. I thought that electrical things would be a better target for the green (non machine ) lobby.

 

Does anybody here subscribe to an e-magazine. I have thought about it but prefer rummaging through boxes of old magazines and see what jumps out at me.

[Degsy]

If it gets to the stage where publishers and authors can make more money out of electronic books than paper books then the paper book will become a thing of the past but I hope that this will be many years away and I will be long deceased.

My book collection goes back more than sixty years and continues to give me great pleasure and I can't see me ever converting to the electronic version which seems to me to be totally impersonal. Looking at the subject in another way I see my two young granddaughters learning to read and how much better they seem to do with books as opposed to electronic versions. They use computers and various other items but the way children's books are laid out with the pictures etc they can interact with the books from an age before they are capable of using electronic items.

[nz2]

The point Degsy makes is so correct. If there is money in it then a change will occur. However the comment was made a decade ago that libraries would disappear with no hard copy books about. They are still there.

The use of the Internet has changed search options, where as once upon a time it was the encyclopedia as search item, now it's to Google. This has broadened the search for the more obscure topics but suffers from the lack of definition between fact and fiction.

On the other hand the use of the computer has allowed individuals to publish their own material, either electronically or to hard copy.

I still like to browse through a book and enjoy absorbing the information from within. A book does not close down when not looked at!

The current project here at home is to place books in order on a newly acquired set of shelves. That is sorting through the piles of books and publications that have sat on the floor for the last few years as the other book shelves become over crowded, to the point where books sat on others and rows became two deep! The new set of shelves gives 10.8 metres of shelf space, however it is rapidly filling.

Yes I enjoy books.

Doug