[13185] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: netLibrary
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Rippel)
Mon Mar 20 20:07:31 2000
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 13:29:22 -0600
From: Chris Rippel <crippel@CKLS.ORG>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
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>Just a reply to all those people who think ebooks are inevitably going to
>replace paper...when EVERY book ever written by humankind is available,
>when I can go to the beach and not worry about dropping my reader in the
>sand or surf, or about leaving it behind, then I think it will replace the
>print book. Print lasts 2-300 years, more with proper preservation.
>CD-ROMs and other electronic media, 20 tops at this point. You can take a
>book, sit it in storage for 100 years, take it out, and read it. Try that
>with your ebooks. Print books are fairly easily attainable for low-income
>people. Ebook readers certainly aren't.
It is easy to list reasons why a particular technology will or will not
become popular.
Such lists predict nothing.
For example, here are five reasons why the horse and buggy is better than
the automobile and, therefore, will never replace the automobile.
1. The horse and buggy has been a successful technology for hundreds of
years. (And if you include chariots, thousands of years.)
2. Horse and buggies start on cold mornings.
3. Horse and buggies don't have batteries to run down.
4. Horse and buggies are a simpler technology that is more easily repaired.
5. If you fall asleep at the reins, horse and buggies don't run off the
road and crash into trees.
I can easily think of five reasons why automobiles are better than horse
and buggies.
These lists predict nothing because we don't know which reasons are
important in determining popularity.
In quoted statement above, preservation is one explanation for why print
books are better than ebooks. This point is irrelevant to whether or not
ebooks will be popular. If hundred-year preservation is actually important
for popularity, VCR videocassettes would not be popular. The fact that they
are shows that a popular media need be only slightly stronger than toilet
paper.
Futhermore, since videocassettes require at least $500 of hardware to play,
easy attainability for low-income people also has little bearing on
popularity. And may even suggest that ebooks are "easily attainable for
low-income people" if they want them.
Preservation and costs are accessibility issues rather than reasons
determining whether or not ebooks will become popular.
Thanks,
Chris Rippel
Central Kansas Library System
1409 Wiliams
Great Bend, Kansas 67530
316-792-4865
crippel@ckls.org
