Plato complained about the move from memory to literacy. Paper is more fragile than stone, clay and animal hides, but much less expensive and more accessible to more people. Electronic books extend the trend. There are tradeoffs to everything. As a result of the move to electronic information, more people have more access to more information. Be a progressive, not a reactionary.
On a related note, I live in West LA, 2 miles from UCLA. The Borders near UCLA closed several months ago and Borders announced in connection with the bankruptcy filing that the store in Century City will be closing. That leaves one Barnes & Noble 2 miles from UCLA as the only new bookstore (other than the college campus bookstore) within probably a 5-mile radius. There are are only one or two used bookstores within that radius. Pretty stunning, but entirely irrelevant to access to books. As a result of Amazon and E-Books, more books are available at less cost. David Shemano --- Original Message--- To: Progressive Economics <[email protected]> From: raghu <[email protected]> Sent: 2/17/2011 10:29AM Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Fahrenheit 451 :Analysts: Borders may have trouble surviving bankruptcy >> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: >> > raghu wrote: >> >> It is not certain that you will be able to access the ebook that you >> >> buy today in say, 10 years time. >> > >> > why? I can convert my old WordStar files into Winword format. >> >> >> All kinds of reasons. More generally digital archiving is fraught with >> all kinds of difficulties, intellectual property regimes being only >> one of them. >> http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0164.pdf >> >> Specifically for ebooks I can think of the following list of possible >> problems. >> >> 1) Ebook formats are not open - they are encrypted and you need >> licenses for each device you plan to read it on. Which entity >> administers these licenses? Will they be in business 10 years from >> now? 50 years? >> >> 2) Format conversions are never completely loss-less. And every time >> you do a conversion you lose something more. This is perhaps more of >> an issue for digital art and multi-media but even for books it is >> relevant. >> >> 3) What happens if you can no longer afford to keep buying the latest >> fancy ebook reader every few years? >> >> 4) If you cannot recharge your ebook e.g. if you are in a place >> without a reliable power supply, then it is useless. >> >> 5) More generally you do not really own an ebook you buy the way you >> own a copy of a regular book. Your ability to access the ebook is >> always contingent on the ubiquitous availability of an elaborate >> technological infrastructure. In that sense it is also environmentally >> a lot more destructive than the dead tree version. >> >> 6) You cannot (easily) share or give your copy of an ebook to someone. >> >> etc. >> >> -raghu. >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >> _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
