3 ms·

I buy most of my books from thrift stores, the major advantage of this is that I can spend less money, get things that may never be published electronically or

I buy most of my books from thrift stores, the major advantage of this is that I can spend less money, get things that may never be published electronically or that I didn't know I wanted, and don't have to make any record anywhere of what books I own. (On the receipt the purchases are charged in generic categories as opposed to specific titles. Even if I were paying with a credit card you wouldn't know what I have.) With that in mind the library of books I would even want to buy electronically is limited. A further limitation of e-books is that they often come with DRM. E-books that I've seen are sequential access, paper books are random access. Search helps bridge the gap here. (Paper books will never have search, and it's arguably a more useful feature than random access. Especially if your E-reader software supports bookmarks.) The major advantage of an E-book is that it takes up basically no space. Considering the flexible media potential of electronic computers, that's sort of disappointing.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back. There's nothing fundamental stopping e-books from being random access, type in the page number and there you are. Then again, e-books can sometimes lose page numbers altogether. e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book. Just some more pros and cons I thought of.
- deleted 13y ago
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- unimpressive 13y ago
  >Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back. An E-book probably has the last two as well. These are almost ineffectual compared to direct word search. >e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book. Sure, but if you do buy a paper book at least you can sell it. You will never be able to recoup any of the money in your ebook library.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back. There's nothing fundamental stopping e-books from being random access, type in the page number and there you are. Then again, e-books can sometimes lose page numbers altogether. e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book. Just some more pros and cons I thought of.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
unimpressive 13y ago
>Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back. An E-book probably has the last two as well. These are almost ineffectual compared to direct word search. >e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book. Sure, but if you do buy a paper book at least you can sell it. You will never be able to recoup any of the money in your ebook library.