In the second grade, I was taken on a field trip to the local public library. Three floors of children’s books, adult books, and reference books of which I was just learning to read. Though fairly recent, the Internet was still a novel idea that was seldom trusted and always confusing, so there were books. They were used to pass on ideas and educate without the need for costly classes or tutoring. But now I’ve moved on. The collegiate library offers more areas with more books and more information, but now, as I moved on, so has the culture. These libraries holds little power compared to that at my fingertips. I could, look through the catalogue of published material and search through the endless array of written words, or I could “google it.” So with my computer offering more information than could ever be gathered in one physical location is the concept of a book changing?
Upon their early conception, books were written words in physical form bound and published. But, between the advancing technological age and environmental movement gaining momentum and inspiring the search for new ways of printing without the need for tree-based paper, fewer and fewer books are presented in their pure form of written works. For example, Google Books offers over a million full-text books without a single physical page. The Amazon Kindle, the best selling E-book reader offers an ever-growing number of books available for download starting at $.99. So with the digital age taking over, are books really obsolete?
Why now?
The advancements in E-books over the last couple years have lead to their unprecedented widespread use. This is specifically a result of how people read them. There was a time when a computer display showed little detail, and as time progressed, it was still expensive to put a high-resolution image onto a digital surface. But now, between mass production and new advancements, E-book readers are taking over. The new age has brought an array of new technologies offering “virtual print.” Sony has employed an one of these ideas called “E-ink,”
“Sandwiched between layers of plastic film are millions of transparent, nearly microscopic liquid-filled spheres. White and black particles float inside them, as though inside the world’s tiniest snow globes. Depending on how the electrical charge is applied to the plastic film, either the black or white particles rise to the top of the little spheres, forming crisp patterns of black and white.”[1]
This sort of display gives the reader the illusion of reading a printed word, much less straining on the eyes than reading off a screen. But even with a new type of display offering the illusion of printed text, does that mean it is a book? Is there nothing to be said for the look and feel of an age-old original copy? Perhaps the world is becoming more “practical” in their expectations of books. An E-book never has a page tear and if you can’t find it, a simple re-download from the distributor is often an option. But can the words on a screen be considered a book?
Where are they coming from?
There are three main booksellers globally; Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. The first two are both online and have stores while the third is exclusively online. However, each one offers E-books[2]. With these companies supplying nearly all the reading material globally, their offering of E-books is a clear sign of the future. N ot only that, but their offering of E-books is significantly more convenient than buying a print book. A physical book requires either an in-store pickup, requiring an individual to leave their quarters and venture to a bookstore, or shipping, a costly and drawn out process of mobilizing a book from a storage facility to a home. This often takes up to a week with domestic transportation. There has to be a better way!
What does it all mean?
In simple terms, an E-book is easy. With a print book, after being published, it must be printed, bound, and sent to a bookstore. The whole process is expensive and it hasn’t even gone to the consumer yet. An E-book needs to be scanned in or compiled in a virtual format, and sent to the online store. This process is essentially free and doesn’t directly require any non-renewable resources. Plus, it can be done in minutes. E-books prove to be the forerunner in growth as far as book sales are concerned but what will that do to the age-old print book? The infamous Rupert Murdoch went as far to suspect the near death of the print industry as a result of the E-book [3]. Having said that, he said, “he wants in” on the E-book action [4].
It is also important to understand the power of an E-book. With the prices down and newfound ease of online ordering, E-books have inspired extremely positive prediction from Richard Posner, a Senior Lecturer at The University Of Chicago. With the Internet gaining an internationally widespread audience reaching the ends of the earth, a quick download offers even the most rare of books. Not only that, but without a renewing cost, there is no need for a book to go out of production. The “books” offered today on Amazon could conceivably be offered for centuries to come despite sales.
So with E-books gaining popularity, is the definition becoming closer and closer to a combination with print books? The fact of the matter is the two will never be the same. As long as the century old books stay in existence the one-of-a-kind book feel will go on. E-books clearly have some advantages but the written word will remain written.
With that understood, is it safe to understand a book to be staying the same, or is the idea of an E-book going to change the way the world reads forever? The fact is that there will always be books. Since they have been so heavily produced over the years, never will they become a complete thing of the past, but maybe written books will go the way of records. Some purists read the written word, but the rest of the world relies on the digital representation. When all is said and done, a book is formally defined as written, but as generations come and go, paper could easily travel with them to the point of records, where a few specialty shops sell them in bulk, but other than that, few and far between. The only thing to do is wait and see.
