Ebooks allow me to make the font the size that's comfortable for my eyes without needing to purchase large print editions and in a way that adjusts to how tired

Ebooks allow me to make the font the size that's comfortable for my eyes without needing to purchase large print editions and in a way that adjusts to how tired my eyes are and the ambient light conditions. For the blind, they can use text-to-speech software without needing to purchase special audiobook editions. You can use dark mode if you like. You can do text searches to go back and re-read a portion of the book even if you haven't memorized the page number it was on. And you can carry your library in your backpack when you travel. Cut and paste text into notekeeping tools. Also, the books don't become moldy with age. Yes, I know the smell of musty books evokes nostalgia but the lung diseases that those working with old books are subject to are very real. http://www.library-dust.com/dust.htm http://www.library-dust.com/dust.htm What I think bothers a lot of people is that ebooks separate out the informational content in books from books as a fetish object for collectors. But properly speaking, collectors rarely read their books and in many cases this would damage the books as uncut books are prized. In his celebrated essay, "Unpacking My Library" (http://www.ruthieosterman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/walterbenjaminunpacking.pdf http://www.ruthieosterman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/wal...), Walter Benjamin writes: "And the non-reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. Experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world. Suffice it to quote the answer that Anatole France gave to a philistine who admired his library and then finished with the standard question 'And you have read all these books, Monsieur France?' 'Not one tenth of them. I don't suppose you use your Sevres china every day?' Incidentally, I have put the right of such an attitude to the test. For years, at least the first third of its existence, my library consisted of only two or three shelves, which increased only by inches each year. This was its militant age, when no book was allowed to enter without the certification that I had never read it." So there is a tension between the book as fetish object and the book as information, and the natural separation of the book into information and fetish object offends only those who never understood what books are or the role they play in society. This group, predictably, includes Ian Bogost.