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Typesetting differences between different devices is a problem that needs to be solved for e-books to become feasible in classroom settings, book club settings,

Typesetting differences between different devices is a problem that needs to be solved for e-books to become feasible in classroom settings, book club settings, etc. If a group wants to discuss a particular scene, argument, metaphor, etc., it's important to be able to point to a page number -- ebooks make this tricky. The typesetting problem also ties into the navigation problem. There are some books in my area of study that I make use of with great frequency (e.g. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Wittgenstein's Tractatus). For the most part, if you ask me to jump to a section, I can get there (within a dozen pages or so) just by opening up the book to the right location. The TOC in something like Adobe Reader do this effectively, but I haven't seen an e-reader that makes jumping to sections as quick. Annotation is another tough problem. In one particular copy of Plato's Meno, I have a series of diagrams attempting to work out a geometry problem posed in a somewhat controversial passage [1]. Some e-readers have made advancements with text annotations, but nothing I've gotten my hands on comes close to paper (yet). I don't think these problems are insurmountable, but I agree with 'ashark that a 14" e-ink screen won't suffice to make books obsolete until certain problems are solved. Even then, I enjoy having a large bookshelf packed with books. Call me old fashioned, but I love the smell of old books :) [1] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/635623?sid=21105440821771&uid=2&uid=4 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/635623?sid=21105440821...

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
You're old fashioned. I used to write book reviews, and for a couple of years I literally got boxes of books from publishers every week. After a while it got insane. The local charity shops and libraries hated me on sight. Schools wouldn't touch the leftovers. I still have no idea why. I kept a few thousand for the house, and the rest ended up in the wood burner. Ebooks would have been much more practical. The flip side of paper is the way that entire forests are laid waste. A print run of a million - not unusual for a best seller - will clear cut a huge area. Then the pulp has to be bleached, which is a nasty process. Eventually most of that paper simply gets thrown away. The whole process is incredibly, stupidly wasteful.
- rpedroso 12y ago
  I won't deny that I'm old-fashioned :) The environmental impact of paper vs e-books is something I had not considered, but the effects of producing e-readers is still non-zero. I'd believe someone if they told me the impact was less than paper books though. I'll also admit that e-books are more practical in some contexts. For instance, I prefer taking my kindle out for casual reading on the beach or in the park -- navigating the book, annotating, etc, aren't big issues for pleasure reading. In academia, there is also another advantage to e-books: an e-book never really goes out of print. In my second year of college, I had to order an expensive copy of Gaston Bachelard's La formation de l'esprit scientifique from the UK because it was out of print in the US. I look forward to a day when e-book annotation will suffice.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

You're old fashioned. I used to write book reviews, and for a couple of years I literally got boxes of books from publishers every week. After a while it got insane. The local charity shops and libraries hated me on sight. Schools wouldn't touch the leftovers. I still have no idea why. I kept a few thousand for the house, and the rest ended up in the wood burner. Ebooks would have been much more practical. The flip side of paper is the way that entire forests are laid waste. A print run of a million - not unusual for a best seller - will clear cut a huge area. Then the pulp has to be bleached, which is a nasty process. Eventually most of that paper simply gets thrown away. The whole process is incredibly, stupidly wasteful.

rpedroso 12y ago
I won't deny that I'm old-fashioned :) The environmental impact of paper vs e-books is something I had not considered, but the effects of producing e-readers is still non-zero. I'd believe someone if they told me the impact was less than paper books though. I'll also admit that e-books are more practical in some contexts. For instance, I prefer taking my kindle out for casual reading on the beach or in the park -- navigating the book, annotating, etc, aren't big issues for pleasure reading. In academia, there is also another advantage to e-books: an e-book never really goes out of print. In my second year of college, I had to order an expensive copy of Gaston Bachelard's La formation de l'esprit scientifique from the UK because it was out of print in the US. I look forward to a day when e-book annotation will suffice.