This may, ultimately, prove to be Amazon’s truly crucial role—not driving the future of reading so much as the future of writing. E-reading technology will push forward even without Amazon’s involvement. The Kindle will soon face stiff competition from a bevy of able competitors. Sony already has an E Ink reader on the market, as does iRex Technologies, and the latter allows you to scrawl notes on the screen with an electronic stylus, then upload those notes to your computer. In the next year, Polymer Vision will bring out Readius, a cell phone that includes an E Ink reader with a rollable screen. Amazon, of course, has plenty of resources and by far the best market position. But if the Kindle’s successor or competitors are to succeed, it will be because Amazon used its status as the world’s largest online bookseller to force authors to think seriously about creating content that works better than the book, that goes where the book cannot, that’s interactive and cooperative and open in ways that printed text will never be.
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To watch Klein discussing the future of reading, click here.
I must take exception to Klein's declaration that paper is a "wasteful, inefficient, and costly method of production". This is valid only if you view reading a book to be a singular, individual event. In contrast, paper still excels when books are treated as communal or archival objects -- in other words, as objects to be shared or preserved instead of read once and then discarded (or ignored).
For example, while helping my parents pack for a move, I uncovered a tattered and worn copy of "The Mad Scientists' Club", which I had enjoyed immensely as a child. As it turned out, my sons also enjoyed that book when I brought it home and shared it with them 35 years after it was printed. I somehow find it difficult to believe that electronic versions of old favorites will be as easy to preserve as the childrens' favorites which will still be just as readable when that box in the garage gets cracked open in a decade or two (or longer). Whether it be a dead battery or a "dead" format, I see it as all too likely that the content saved would be unreadable in too few years, much less shared with children or grandchildren.
Similarly, paper books excel at sharing. Like many readers, I have no compunctions about wanting to introduce friends to good books (and good authors). How would I casually loan my sole electronic copy of a good book to a friend? Would I have to resort to buying a copy for myself and a copy to loan out? Will the e-publishers even allow their customers to loan out that precious content, or will it be treated like other software?
I'm sorry, but paper editions are still very efficient and very effective the moment you start looking at the content beyond the constraints of "my convenience, now".
Posted by William Clardy
on Sun 11 May 2008 at 11:46 AM
Thank you for this insightful article. Kindle is definitely not going to kill off print books any time soon for many reasons including that the later less expensive to replace and much more ubiquitous.
Klein's ideas about extending the idea of a book into a continually-updating text is a good idea that publishers need to embrace also. Of course, this will depend on writers who are willing to do the updates and finding suitable substitutes (if any) for deceased authors.
Posted by Jason Gross
on Fri 16 May 2008 at 11:48 AM
The New York Times Doesn't Think We Need a New Word for Reading on Screens In Order to Differentiate It From Reading On Paper, But ....
....BUT.....there is a spirited discussion about all this now online in hundreds of blogs and websites, and a recent interview with Dr Anne Mangen in Norway sheds more light on the issues invovled.
AN INTERVIEW WITH DR ANNE MANGEN IN NORWAY ON READING ON PAPER AND
READING ON SCREENS
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2009/08/interview-with-dr-anne-mangen-in-norway.html
conducted by reporter/blogger Danny Bloom in Taiwan (August 15, 2009)
Anne Mangen is a reading specialst in Norway,
and a paper she published in late 2008 in the UK on the differences
betweem reading on paper and reading on screens has catapulted her to
the forefront of the debate on this controverisal topic. Even the New York Times has taken notice.
In a recent email interview, I asked Dr Mangen to go over some of the
issues involved here. As some readers might know, I have been
advocating that society adopt a new word for reading on screens, since
I feel screen reading is so different from reading on paper, and I
feel that with a new word we can study the differences better -- and
point out the differences better, too -- and I have gently, quietly
suggested the word "screening" to mean "reading text on a screen". Of
course, not everyone agrees with me; and even Dr Mangen does not agree
with me, even though it was her 2008 academic paper that got me
started on this quixotic quest. But that's okay. I respect Dr Mangen
highly, and I still consider her my mentor on all this.
When I asked her that since reading on paper is very different from
reading on screens, does she think that at some point we might need a
new word in English for "reading on screens", she replied: "Not
really, because I doubt that one single word is able to denote the
complexity of the process in any accurate and useful way."
MORE.....
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2009/08/interview-with-dr-anne-mangen-in-norway.html
Posted by bloomingidiot
on Tue 18 Aug 2009 at 11:44 AM