Electronic Books Are Catching On
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06. 2.08
Electronic books are controversial at TreeHugger; I love the idea of separating the message from the medium, the words from the dead trees. Others love the Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge (BOOK) format that "is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology; no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use even a child can operate it." (Treehugger here and here)
Watching developments closely are the publishers and booksellers, wondering if they are going to the way of Tower Records and the music industry. While electronic books have been a niche idea for a while, Amazon's Kindle is catching on; Jeff Bezos told people attending BookExpo America that 6% of his unit sales of books are no electronic. Given the number of books he sells, that's a lot. Jeff Bezos doesn't expect to be all-electronic any time soon: “Anything that lasts 500 years is not easily improved upon. Books are so good you can’t out-book the book.” ::New York Times
UPDATE: Seth Godin writes about the fact that I missed- publishers sell the ebooks to Amazon for exactly the same price as the paper book, even though there are no trees.
Dematerialized Words from TreeHugger on E-Books:
Electronic Books: The Next Chapter : TreeHugger
TreeHugger Picks: Electronic Reading with E-Books and Readers ...
Core77 One Hour Design Challenge eBook Winner : TreeHugger
Survey: Do You Read Books? : TreeHugger
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Free "Holy Ground" Book To First 20 TreeHuggers
- How to Buy Used Books
- 8 Books to Give Yourself a Green Education
- Long Overdue: Eco-labelling for Electronics
while I see where this could be a useful gadget (travel springs instantly to mind) you can't read it in the bath..and on the beach seems a little sketchy to me...
I'm on the fence and I'll continue my weekly library treks for now.
There is the other issue with the Kindle and most other eBook Reader that have a good store to buy from (i.e. like Sony), and from someone who really wants one, when you buy a dead tree book, you can pass it off to a friend when you are done with it, or even sell it at a garage sale or to a used book store. BUT with the kindle there is not a way to lone or pass on a book after you have bought it. If someone can figure out this one issue then i see ebooks taking off and becoming the rule instead of the exception.
-=tbn=-
The Wall Street Journal did a similar piece last week... my response to that article is here:
http://snurl.com/2a54g
The gist of it: If you want to save the book don't buy a Kindle, get a library card. In my opinion the Kindle and devices like it will not only NOT save the long format book they will hasten it's decline. I won't burden the Treehugger comments with why, so if you're interested in why I think that follow the above link.
The thing people often miss about the Kindle is that you get free wireless broadband for life! That's more than worth it to me.
Besides, the ability to lay it down and have it stay open to read while I'm doing something else is worth it, too.
Now to come up with the $349 to buy one!
What's wrong with libraries?
I own the amazon Kindle, and YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY FROM AMAZON TO USE IT. Almost every single classic is available to download online for free. You can even use the webbrowser on the kindle to find it and download it. the website www.feedbooks.com has it all listed.
O yea, and having the newspaper and my favorite blogs appear automatically (without having to plug it into a computer or go outside and get the paper) makes this thing sooo worthwhile. If you read the newspaper, or read books regularly, this thing is perfect.
there is a free internet and wikipedia. Why wouldn't anyone want this?
I think what we're still missing is a full life-cycle assessment of reading e-books using kindle or other similar electronic book readers. Until we have that, we can't really tell if and how much e-books are more environmental-friendly in comparison to paper made books.
I wonder if Amazon would agree to initiate a life-cycle assessment? if they believe the Kindle is also superior in green terms, they can only gain out of it!
If you want to learn more about information that is already available, you're welcome to check our 'e-books vs. paper made books' resource page - http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp
Best,
Raz Godelnik
Eco-Libris