The Final Word
By Alasdair Firth
Online news is replacing its print rival, circulation figures for broadsheets are down, and even the tabloids are starting to suffer. With the rise of the e-paper devices such as the Kindle, how long will it be until hard copies books become obsolete? Hopefully they never will.
Developed by the online giant Amazon.com, the first version of the Kindle was released in the United States on 19th November 2007. For the price of $399 buyers would then have access to over 80,000 titles (a figure that increased to over 300,000 this year) on their portable hand-held device. In 2008 Amazon sold an estimated 500,000 units and this figure is set to rise in 2009 after the launch of Kindle 2 in February and an international release in October. The Kindle is of course not the only e-paper device. There is also the Barnes & Noble nook, the Sony Reader, iRex iLiad, the Jinke Hanlin e-Reader, and CyBook by Bookeen. And let’s not forget Project Gutenberg, which has over 20,000 titles in its online archives.
Surprisingly (or perhaps wisely), publishers seem to have embraced the e-paper devices. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol sold 100,000 e-books during the first week after its release, this accounts for 5% of total sales for the book during that period. This may not seem like a large percentage but it is a significant step forward, and an ominous sign of what is to come. E-paper devices look set to cause the end of books, and this upsets me greatly.
There are of course advantages of e-books over the physical copies. With an e-paper device you can have a whole library at your finger tips at all time (something that would be physically impossible for even the strongest of people with a library of regular books), whole forests of trees would not need to be cut down to make paper, and you would be able to switch between titles without having to get up and pick another book off of the shelf.
Still I would hate to see books disappear. Who could do without the smell of a new book (or an old musty one for that matter)? Or without the satisfaction of turning over the pages, or being able to see how far you are progressing through a title by where the bookmark sticks out from between the pages? Also, the e-paper devices are hardly infallible—the problems with the Kindle for example have been numerous and well documented—and how many times has technology failed you when you needed it most? My iPod has been known to die on me on long train journeys for no reason, usually when a small child behind me starts crying/ screaming/ having a break down of some sort. A book won’t run out of battery and is more durable. You can spill coffee on it without breaking it, though it will of course be stained.
Perhaps I am biased as I have grown up around books with two librarians for parents so have a soft spot for them. Or maybe I am just plain old-fashioned, but I really would mourn the loss of books.
By Alasdair Firth
Online news is replacing its print rival, circulation figures for broadsheets are down, and even the tabloids are starting to suffer. With the rise of the e-paper devices such as the Kindle, how long will it be until hard copies books become obsolete? Hopefully they never will.
Developed by the online giant Amazon.com, the first version of the Kindle was released in the United States on 19th November 2007. For the price of $399 buyers would then have access to over 80,000 titles (a figure that increased to over 300,000 this year) on their portable hand-held device. In 2008 Amazon sold an estimated 500,000 units and this figure is set to rise in 2009 after the launch of Kindle 2 in February and an international release in October. The Kindle is of course not the only e-paper device. There is also the Barnes & Noble nook, the Sony Reader, iRex iLiad, the Jinke Hanlin e-Reader, and CyBook by Bookeen. And let’s not forget Project Gutenberg, which has over 20,000 titles in its online archives.
Surprisingly (or perhaps wisely), publishers seem to have embraced the e-paper devices. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol sold 100,000 e-books during the first week after its release, this accounts for 5% of total sales for the book during that period. This may not seem like a large percentage but it is a significant step forward, and an ominous sign of what is to come. E-paper devices look set to cause the end of books, and this upsets me greatly.
There are of course advantages of e-books over the physical copies. With an e-paper device you can have a whole library at your finger tips at all time (something that would be physically impossible for even the strongest of people with a library of regular books), whole forests of trees would not need to be cut down to make paper, and you would be able to switch between titles without having to get up and pick another book off of the shelf.
Still I would hate to see books disappear. Who could do without the smell of a new book (or an old musty one for that matter)? Or without the satisfaction of turning over the pages, or being able to see how far you are progressing through a title by where the bookmark sticks out from between the pages? Also, the e-paper devices are hardly infallible—the problems with the Kindle for example have been numerous and well documented—and how many times has technology failed you when you needed it most? My iPod has been known to die on me on long train journeys for no reason, usually when a small child behind me starts crying/ screaming/ having a break down of some sort. A book won’t run out of battery and is more durable. You can spill coffee on it without breaking it, though it will of course be stained.
Perhaps I am biased as I have grown up around books with two librarians for parents so have a soft spot for them. Or maybe I am just plain old-fashioned, but I really would mourn the loss of books.