Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Why We Need Paper Books

Tags: activism, cyberspace theory, economics, networking, reading
Subscribe

  • Goldenrod Gall Contents

    Apparently all kinds of things go on inside goldenrod galls, beyond the caterpillars who make them. Fascinating. I've seen the galls but haven't…

  • Science and Spirituality

    Here's an article about science and spirituality, sort of. It doesn't have a very wide view of either. Can you be scientific and spiritual? This…

  • Geniuses

    This article asks if geniuses are real. Gee thanks, assholes. It's not enough to be treated like a vending machine, now you want to play the erasure…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
    Help
  • 16 comments
the_vulture

the_vulture

September 28 2011, 09:34:26 UTC 9 years ago

I've witnessed a very interesting relationship between books and poverty: http://the-vulture.livejournal.com/112669.html
ysabetwordsmith

Wow!

ysabetwordsmith

September 28 2011, 18:22:50 UTC 9 years ago

That's quite a story. Thank you for sharing.

This is my recipe for Thanksgiving turkey:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/855901.html
rhodielady_47

rhodielady_47

September 28 2011, 10:07:36 UTC 9 years ago

Thanks for this link! I had no idea this writer was an LJ member.
:D
ysabetwordsmith

You're welcome!

ysabetwordsmith

September 28 2011, 18:44:07 UTC 9 years ago

I didn't know either, until someone linked that post. So I friended her.
rhodielady_47

Re: You're welcome!

rhodielady_47

September 28 2011, 19:21:10 UTC 9 years ago

So did I. She's friended me back as well.
:]
catsittingstill

catsittingstill

September 28 2011, 11:21:04 UTC 9 years ago

I love e-books. But I certainly don't want them to drive out paper books, for precisely this reason.
siliconshaman

siliconshaman

September 28 2011, 12:16:21 UTC 9 years ago Edited:  September 28 2011, 12:17:54 UTC

I don't think e-books will drive out print books.. in point of fact I rather hope they won't because distribution of e-books increases sales of print books. People being what they are, they like owning something they can hold.

That said, I think there is a way all of this can work together to provide a solution to the problems outlined...
which is kind of a long thing to explain, so I made a post here. [Lj version here.]
ankewehner

ankewehner

September 28 2011, 13:32:52 UTC 9 years ago

*heh* I hope you won't consider me a non-person for actually preferring ebooks to paper books for my own reading (at least if we're talking about things like novels, not picture books). ;)

I can't really imagine publishing houses being fine with library patrons being able to get all their ebooks for free and forever, considering that existing ebook library systems work with time limits, waiting until the previous person "returns" the book (or their time runs out), and that one publisher actually wanted to limit the number of times an ebook could be lent out, requiring libraries to buy a new license afterwards. (Something in the ballpark of 21-24, IIRC.)
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

9 years ago

  • New comment
paka

paka

September 28 2011, 16:18:22 UTC 9 years ago

Thanks. I love that post (and said so there). I think this is characteristic of pretty much all of the modernity fetish in our society. Usually I think of this in terms of getting around - the future is bright for electric vehicles and hybrids, but what about those of us stuck with whatever used cars we can afford, or taking the bus? - so I hadn't thought about the book aspect.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

September 28 2011, 18:43:12 UTC 9 years ago

I worry about that whenever society tries to force a total change. Everyone who can't afford to buy new gear is just fucked. Even if it's not forced, if the older, cheaper version becomes largely unavailable that can be a real problem.

I'm all in favor of reusable bags, but not everyone has $5 or more to spend on a set of bags. Not everyone has the skills and materials to make their own. If disposable bags are banned or priced, it hurts the people who relied on free ones. Our food co-op deals with the challenge by having a bag tree: you can leave bags or take bags. It's rarely empty.
jilara

jilara

September 28 2011, 23:54:39 UTC 9 years ago

I keep thinking of when Recycle Books, an awesome local used-book store, was downtown, and people who couldn't sell books would simply leave the box on the sidewalk. The homeless would come pick through them, and most of them vanished in a flash. Which makes an interesting comment on how life isn't what one expects. We joked about having very well-read homeless people, but seriously, books are comfort. Without paper books, these folks would not have to opportunity to access that comfort.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

September 28 2011, 23:57:47 UTC 9 years ago

It's good for people to have free access to books like that. I'm also in favor of swap shelves. There's a local coffeehouse that has a bookcase where you can take one or leave one.
fayanora

fayanora

September 29 2011, 01:19:56 UTC 9 years ago

David Brin wrote a couple Uplift trilogies. In the second trilogy, which took place on the planet Jijo, home to illegal colonists on a planet being left fallow by the Five Galaxies civilization, when the humans come to settle on Jijo, one of their first acts is to use their spacecraft to turn a whole bunch of trees into a paper-book library before dismantling the spacecraft. I thought it was pretty cool that, several hundred years in the future, print books were still valued.
ysabetwordsmith

Ooo...

ysabetwordsmith

September 29 2011, 01:27:37 UTC 9 years ago

I like that!
red_trillium

red_trillium

September 30 2011, 23:52:27 UTC 9 years ago

That's a good post, thank you for sharing. It is important to have both mediums for people. The ironic thing is that I own books that if I hadn't been exposed to them/the authors at the library I would never have bought so to the epublishers who somehow think that libraries loaning electronic versions to ereaders would make people not buy books--boo!

Granted, I understand their need to limit how many people can check one copy out at a time, but to say the library has to rebuy the license after a couple dozen downloads? Wrong.

  • Goldenrod Gall Contents

    Apparently all kinds of things go on inside goldenrod galls, beyond the caterpillars who make them. Fascinating. I've seen the galls but haven't…

  • Science and Spirituality

    Here's an article about science and spirituality, sort of. It doesn't have a very wide view of either. Can you be scientific and spiritual? This…

  • Geniuses

    This article asks if geniuses are real. Gee thanks, assholes. It's not enough to be treated like a vending machine, now you want to play the erasure…