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With a couple of books I reference often, I've bought the physical version after already having the e-book one. It really makes such a difference. On the other
by danmaz74 12y ago
With a couple of books I reference often, I've bought the physical version after already having the e-book one. It really makes such a difference.
On the other hand, the convenience of looking for a book online, being able to choose one or a couple, and having it in your e-reader after a few minutes is also something not to discard.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y agoPaper is waiting for ereader screens to increase in size and resolution and to grow a facing page. I'm not sure if ereaders will get there in time, because laptops may overtake them. We'll see... Either way ten years from now readers will be all-electronic slabs of foldable plastic, and won't look so much like the limited single page Minimum Viable Product designs that are popular today. The limiting factors for textbook content are commercial, and will probably be bypassed. Academic papers are already moving to open distribution, and I'd expect a GitHub-for-Textbooks with wiki-able content to appear within the next few years. Publishers don't have the time, insight, or interest to enhance textbook content. If enhanced content is open-sourced the work can be spread across an entire population, which makes it much more viable economically. The only catch is how this works financially for authors. About that, I have no idea.