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Interestingly, I find old books charming, especially ones with signs of wear and age. Kind of like a sturdy old table with nicks and bruises or a skillet with s

Interestingly, I find old books charming, especially ones with signs of wear and age. Kind of like a sturdy old table with nicks and bruises or a skillet with scrapes and scratches. I think eBooks are fine for "on-the-go," but hard copies certainly have a place on my bookshelf. In time, hard copies will become a niche product, one you use while sitting in your easy chair on a cold winter night. Everyone thought the radio will die with the advent of TV, but it just found a niche (nobody listens to the radio in their house, but they do in their car). As a side note, the OP said that he prefers reference books as hard copy books. When I think of reference books though, I think searchable content, which means I want my references to be in eBook format.

erikpukinskis 16y ago
The radio/TV comparison is a little off. Radio is a fundamentally different experience than TV: it doesn't require sight. So that allows it to occupy it's rather substantial niche. Paper books still have some interface advantages over ebooks (as several people have described in this thread) but they'll go away as people build proper, well designed ebook readers. When that happens, all books will have going for them is nostalgia and a pleasant physical experience that can't be replicated digitally. I think a much more apt comparison is records, which don't provide a fundamentally different sonic experience, but do have nostalgia and physicality. So I think a handful of book lovers will still have collections, and visit the bookstore down the street, but like record players, and unlike radios, I think the vast majority of the population won't have any.