Slashdot Mirror
Poll Shows That 75% Prefer Printed Books To eBooks
Attila Dimedici writes "In a new Rasmussen poll, 75% of American adults would rather read a book in traditional print format than in an ebook format. Only 15% prefer the ebook format (the other 10% are undecided). The latter is a drop from the 23% that preferred the ebook format in Rasmussen's 2011 poll. In addition, more say they buy their books from a brick and mortar store than say they buy books online (35% from brick and mortar, 27% online). I suspect that the 27% who buy online buy more books, but these results are interesting and suggest that the brick and mortar bookstore is not necessarily doomed."
For casual reading, e-books are fine but for technical materials I prefer hard copy that way there's no fear that the distributor won't change their TOS and I wind up losing a ton of C++ reference material or my favorite books on Roman History.
Spoiler alert: If you're wondering about the Roman History part, the empire collapsed.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I like printed books; but, they don't match the convenience of electronic books. I carry an iPod touch and I read everywhere, waiting for a meal, waiting for the Doctor, waiting for the Dentist, waiting for the long query to finish. If I run through the current book, I buy another online. It doesn't matter that it is midnight or 2 a.m.. I have whole bookstores ready to serve me.
Now sitting down in front of the fireplace with that paper book is pleasant. I'm not waiting until Winter and enough spare time to do that. I'm addicted to electronic books and would not willingly go back.
I'd be interested to see the answers broken down by age. It may well be that most of the people who love paper books will be dead in 20 years.
I suspect there's also a "fake good" effect, in that people feel they ought to be supporting their local bookshop and therefore say that they do, even if, in fact, they buy a book a year in an airport and every other book on Amazon.
Personally, I really like paper, even for technical books, but all my colleagues look at me like I'm wearing sabre-toothed tiger skins and wielding a club.
Virtually serving coffee
.
When I buy an eBook, I do not own the book. In order to read the book, I have to hope that some DRM server somewhere will authorize the eBook reader to show me the book I want to read.
I have books on my book shelves that are over 50 years old, and I can still read them fine. Can the same be said about eBooks 50 years from now?
Maybe things are different now, maybe not.
Reading and Writing with Computers: A Framework for Explaining Differences in Performance
Most studies have found that reading from paper is faster than reading from computer screens. Muter, et al. [1982] showed that reading from TV screens took 25% longer than from paper, but produced roughly equal comprehension scores. Wright and Lickorish [1983] also found that paper was faster. Gould and Grischkowsky [1984] studied subjects performing an eight hour proof reading task. They found that work was more rapid on paper, with slightly higher quality than on personal computers. Our own experiments verified these results and extended them to positional memory and various alternate computer conditions.
(I was actually looking for something else this morning and stumbled across this, and the topic came up on Slashdot. Synchronicity?)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The ebook is a different medium and as Marshall McLuhan pointed out the medium is the message. That is the medium dictates how the message is best sent and interpreted. Ebooks can simulate a paper book but just taking a book best formatted for paper is often not going to work well when just stuffed into an ebook. Many times it is simple the diagrams and whatnot being the wrong size for the often smaller screen. But other times (as with a magazines) you want to flick through looking for an article that catches your attention. Some like paperbacks translate well to the kindle with its e-ink and simple page turning formula.
Then with ebooks there are potential advantages such as speed of downloading, massive weight reductions, easy logistics, etc.
So I would not condemn the ebook so much as we should condemn the near lack of innovation in taking advantage of this wonderful new medium. To me this would be like saying that TV was not an improvement over radio if all people had done with it was to film people reading radio plays.
If I had to guess ebook improvements would include the obvious such as interactivity and formatting changes. But other things such getting rid of a general purpose textbook covering many subjects at one level and changing it so that each subject is covered from beginning to end and you just move on to another subject when you reach the desired level.
Well, more specifically, Amazon did. With a Kindle book, I can read it on any device (Kindle preferred, of course; love its display), can access my books anywhere with an Internet connection, and can even put documents I want to read on my devices onto my Kindle/cloud/etc by e-mail. Their implementation is rock-solid, and their main device feels just like reading a book to me.
I've read lots and lots of books over time, and most of them have been paper format. I'm 35 and was a book worm for about the age of 8 until close to my 30's when I just got plowed over with responsibility. I'm picking up the habit again.
I prefer ebooks.
Unlike cheap paperbacks if I fail to hold the thing open right it doesn't snap shut and cause me to completely lose my place. I can buy all the ebooks I want, and when it comes time to move I don't have to give myself a hernia moving the collection. As I continue to collect ebooks I don't have to find more space on the book shelf for them, and I can keep them forever without just giving up my investment if I want to re-read it.
My house has been robbed (by a deputy sheriff no less) and flooded by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike. Yes I had books stolen when I was robbed and after the hurricane I literally used a shovel to move the pulpy volumes into the trash bags. Even if both of my competing supplier ebook readers get burned up as my home catches fire all of my ebooks will be back in my hands as soon as I buy new later model readers to replace my old ones.
I still do occasionally buy dead-tree books. Watchmen for obvious reasons, I have the Dark Tower series, both the hard back and Marvel versions for art reasons. I collected comics as a kid, but other than a few adult targeted ones like I just mentioned I'm not into that anymore, still I do look forward to color e-ink, even if it's only 16 color or something crappy like that for comic reasons.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I like both printed books and ebooks. They both have strengths and weaknesses, they complement each other rather than replace either in my view.
I like to have heavy to carry around technical books (DRM free) and vendor documentation on ebook reader. eBook also more convenient not causing problems to breathe compared to a 3000+ large page monster on you chest when you lay on couch, hammock or bed while reading. But then often reading experience on table or while sitting on good armchair with good lighting etc. often nothing comes near real printed book.
IMHO, eBook is great especially for short lived stuff, manuals that are updated few times a year with the product they describe and of course magazines, but printed books anything I expect to have more value over let's say 5 years.
I prefer ebooks to printed books, but only on my kindle paperwhite. Reading on a backlit display for more than a short amount of time causes me a headache and interferes with my sleep if I read before bed. I would go so far as to say that the act of reading on a paperwhite is a superior experience to reading on real paper (as far as my own two eyes go). As for the question of wether or not my ebook library will still be there in fifty years, we'll have to see, but I suspect we will be downloading books into our head by then anyway.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
They really should have asked the population whether they actually own an e-book reader. Lots of people don't, and would never buy one because they prefer print books. The thing is, I was in that same category myself, before I bought a Nook. I bought it for other things, not to read books on, but after I had it, I did some reading on it, and I was soon hooked. I really do like reading books on the e-reader instead, it's just more convenient.
Now, I'm a bibliophile and always will be. I won't give up my books, and I still buy paper books when I know it's something I want to keep, or I can get a good deal on the hard cover. What would be really nice if, when I plunk down $25 - $35 for a hardcover book, to have free access to the e-reader version, too. They do this now with music, why not books? Often I would rather read the book on my e-reader, but still have the hardcover for my library, but I don't want to pay an extra $10 for that privilege. I think they would sell a lot more books (and e-readers) if they did that.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I think I would prefer real books (something that I can just toss into a bag without worry if it's charged or going to get stolen), but, I'm dyslexic. Being able to change the text size so that I'm reading in small chunks makes me able to read much faster. The other benefits (saves space, able to buy a new book where ever I am) is just a bonus.
And ironically these days losing a kindle would be less of a financial hardship than losing a couple of books. ( it wasn't that way not too long ago tho )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For me, reading a book is a journey through its pages.
Not in some metaphorical sense, but in a very literal, tactile, visual sense.
I associate the words in a book with their position on the page,
and the pages with their (approximate) position within the thickness of the book.
It helps me keep track of what I've read, and place words and passages in context of the overall book.
I never thought about any of this until I started reading eBooks and it wasn't there.
An eBook is just one long (long, long, very long) stream of words.
Some eBooks paginate the words for display, but that pagination is typically not stable:
revisit those words another time and they will likely appear on the screen in a different place.
And those pages--such as they are--have no apparent position within any larger structure.
This is OK for a dictionary or a reference manual, where I just look things up.
But for any serious work of non-fiction, it's horribly acontextual: the book just turns into word mush.
I haven't tried reading any fiction eBooks, so I don't know if they would fare any better.
Actually, I think Moscow has a better claim to it.
As we all know, the Roman empire was split circa 400AD (1100AUC). The Eastern portion became the Byzantine Empire, which lasted essentially until 1200AD. By that point the Byzantine Empire was heavily connected to Eastern Orthodoxy, and in that role, at least, the Empire was succeeded by the Russians (Mehmed II, the Ottoman conqueror of Byzantium/Constantinople, tried to claim the title as well, but that didn't last much beyond his lifetime). Tsarist Russia fell to the Bolsheviks, who formed the Russian SFSR, which joined the USSR. When that eventually collapsed, we ended up with the Russian Federation we have today.
As for the Western half, that also ended up in Russia. The title laid dormant for a few centuries after the fall of Rome, until it was revived for Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. That also eventually fell apart, until Otto the Great. While this territory never included Rome itself, it did include parts of Italy. In any case, the Empire was formally dissolved during the Napoleonic wars; however, both Austrians and Germans laid claim to being its successor state. In either case, those states ended up wrapped within Nazi Germany, which was conquered mostly by the Soviets in WW2.
So yep. All hail Caesar Putin I, Emperor of the Roman Empire (I think we're up to the Fourth or maybe Fifth Roman Empire by now, but I'll let him decide what he wants to call it).
US books sales were running about 80% hardcopy / 20% electronic in 2012 vs 85% / 15% in 2011 ...
Current numbers of up towards 25% e-book share seem completely reasonable
However, the growth rates have plummeted and seems that e-books may top out at less than 30% market over the next few years
The biggest surprise is that the "new-ness" of ebooks may be wearing off
...which how many people have actually bought? The cheap paperbacks most people purchase won't lie flat and youu have to hunt for the right light. With an ereader, no problem.
Sounds like you need to set up a workflow. Mine is to strip any DRM off a book and load it into Calibre. From there it gets its metadata edited / retrieved as needed and then it's sent to my Kindle via USB. The book is then saved to disk in both the original and .epub formats in a "stuff I've loaded on the Kindle" repository. Everything's local to my network, bog boring standard and trivially available for me to do whatever I want with it. From where I'm sitting, the technical limitations of ebooks are no greater than the problems we used to get from music files. Check out the news, we've got bigger fish to fry!