eBooks vs Regular Books

[froggerz40]

Real books have some things "E-books" will never have; The tactile impressions of receiving your older siblings` or parents` old books. The smells, feel of the bindings, illustrations (beautiful old line drawings..! ) Even cheap paperbacks give a nice sense of time passage with their brittle, browning pages. They make for beautiful memories, and are things that touch the soul. The ability to flop down on the couch in the sunny part of the room, with a good book..Or LATER, before sleep, reading the same book in bed... comfortable! Try THAT with a PC. (No, laptops aren`t the same... )
And as for building up large collections of books? Of course! Each book I read reveals something of the author to me, and something of ME to MYSELF. Why would I pitch it, upon completing it? Especially being as small as a book is. Of course it`s going on a shelf. And when the shelves bulge with books, I`ll take pride in `em, because they`re MY books! Expressing MY tastes and MY interests. A lot of my life is invested in them as well...
Don`t worry folks. Books are with us to stay, as long as people buy them, and they are cheap to produce ( how cheap is newsprint?). E-books will have their place, too. Downloading a novel, seconds after you`ve read reviews on it(!), has its appeal as well! Also great for students!
Maybe I`m getting old and foolish, but that`s how I like to be. Frogger

 

[Jenna]

I use a Franklin Ebookman. I removed all of the other stuff so I would have more room for books on it. I understand you can get EBM's on Ebay for next to nothing. Franklin stopped making them, but it seems that people have no problems finding them for sale somewhere. I'm positive that there will be cheap and numerous readers out there in the next 5 years. You can also read a lot of ebooks on Palm Pilots. You just have to buy the right format. I always buy HTML because I can put that on my EBM or read it on my computer. I've often found that if the book is good enough, I forget that I'm sitting at the computer and just keep reading. I can read the EBM in bed, of course, just like a paperback. And I don't need a light, because it has a backlight on it.

Ebooks are predicted to make a huge hit in schools as well in the not too distant future. Why? Because textbooks can be updated instantly when things change politically. Because students no longer have to lug around backpacks that weigh more than they do. Kids today are already using computers for most everything. Even in kindergarten. Computers are second nature to them. So, while one generation will adhere to paperbacks, another will lean toward electronic.

 

[VTChEwbecca]

Ebooks are predicted to make a huge hit in schools as well in the not too distant future. Why? Because textbooks can be updated instantly when things change politically. Because students no longer have to lug around backpacks that weigh more than they do. Kids today are already using computers for most everything. Even in kindergarten. Computers are second nature to them. So, while one generation will adhere to paperbacks, another will lean toward electronic.

As a future (I hope) teacher, the eBooks in schools makes a great amount of sense. I'd love to see that technology enter into schools. Though one thing concerns me...how durable do you find the ebooks to be? I'd hate to be using an ebook reader and have it break for some reason or the other.

 

[Jenna]

I don't have statistics on breakage. But most kids nowadays are used to handling electronic equipment. Cell phones, PDA's, MP3 players, CD players. I've dropped my EBM and it didn't break, but I have never intentionally stressed it to find out how much it could take. Most of the teachers I know let the kids read things on the computers in the classrooms.

 

[VTChEwbecca]

If you've dropped it and it still works, then its sturdy enough for kids. The dropping is what I was worried about....I figure kids these days know enough about electronics to avoid over-stressing them.

 

[Richard Rahl]

id say real good old books for a cuople of reasons: first of all, the plasma screen thingy of my laptop cant be good on my eyes. second of all, the whole scrolling down thing screws up the feel of the book for some odd reason, and when you have a book, you get a real sense of accomplishment as you see your bookmark move towards the end, not to mention mobility!