[WEB4LIB] RE: why ebooks and when?

[Larry Campbell]

 Right now ebooks can download tens of thousands of titles off the Web for
 free -- out-of-print pulp fiction (not to everyone's taste, granted),
 historical/scholarly texts (that can be hard to find at your local
 library), technical documentation, classics. You can carry around dozens
 of these texts on a 2-lb. device, look up highlighted words in a built-in
 dictionary, enlarge the print with the push of a button, highlight
 or annotate, and then hide or erase the markup with the push of another
 button. And, yes, you can read them in the dark. It's, to say the least,
 difficult to do any of those things with a paperback. 
    
   What's going to happen when they contain fair-sized reference libraries
 and display moving, talking pictures? 
 
 Larry Campbell              email:      larrycam at interchange.ubc.ca
 Information Services        telephone:  (604) 822-2076
 Koerner Library
 University of British Columbia
 http://www.library.ubc.ca
 
 On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Blake Carver wrote:
 
 > 
 > Great point.
 > BUT, what compelling reasons do we as consumers have to buy an eBook. So 
 > maybe "we" as librarians can see some reasons... space savings, time, 
 > money, probably more, but "we" as the average consumer needs a compelling 
 > reason to "uprgade" to eBooks. Just look at the marketing of eBooks:
 > Lightweight, portable, easy to read, simple, flexible, loads of titles... 
 > big deal, so is a paperback, and it costs $285 less.
 > They lose the control, longevity, tactile traits, ease of use, familiarity, 
 > and collectability that come with paper books, and don't gain much of 
 > anything except yet another gadget that gathers dust in the closet with the 
 > abroller, stairmaster and norditrac.
 > 
 > I had a good reason to buy CD's over LP's, I just don't see one here.
 > 
 > -Blake
 > 
 > 
 > ------------------------------------------
 > Blake Carver
 > Web Librarian
 > The Ohio State University Libraries
 > 
 >