Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Will Tablets Kill Bookstores
- Thread starter Blakjack
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Reading some of the responses after my original post, I can see Borders and B&N pulling what Circuit City did. Declare bankruptcy, shut down their brick and mortar stores, and just having online stores.
Even though I still purchase print books, I typically order my books from either Amazon or B&N's web site. Very rarely do I go into a physical bookstore (unless I want to kill a few hours).
Even though I still purchase print books, I typically order my books from either Amazon or B&N's web site. Very rarely do I go into a physical bookstore (unless I want to kill a few hours).
Uh you can't be serious right?
Way to give away your ageI don't know a single person who still reads comics. Nor do I know someone who knows someone. At least under the age of 50.... so, I don think there are many children looking as Comics on Christmas.
ummm I am in my 20's and I still read and buy comic books. Hell I have tubs full of them.
I have said it before what is killing book stores is not ereaders but places like Walmart, Target and Amazon. Walmart and Target carry best sellers now and Amazon selection just can dwarf a book store.
I still buy books but I will say I see myself moving more over to the kindle now that I have it. Not for the cost savings but for the space. I have boxes full of books I own and have read.
What's worrisome is that digital books may not have the longevity that many physical books have--and so there is the chance that important historical and other information will be lost. Hundreds and even thousands of years later printed words on some form of paper have survived and have been invaluable.
Do you think an iPad or a Kindle is going to turn on after hundreds of years? I think most people assume that digital files will simply be moved from one device to the next--and that might be the way it will work for a long time. However, there have been several major upheavals in the course of civilization which interrupted accurate record keeping for many years. In those cases, people relied on the books that already existed to regain knowledge.
I'm not saying e-readers are bad, its just I think we need to consider the long term plan to preserve knowledge.
Do you think an iPad or a Kindle is going to turn on after hundreds of years? I think most people assume that digital files will simply be moved from one device to the next--and that might be the way it will work for a long time. However, there have been several major upheavals in the course of civilization which interrupted accurate record keeping for many years. In those cases, people relied on the books that already existed to regain knowledge.
I'm not saying e-readers are bad, its just I think we need to consider the long term plan to preserve knowledge.
Are you really stating that we will rely on our ereaders as the ONLY digital copy of the books going forward? An ereader pulls its "books" off of massive servers with huge redundant storage systems. All of our ereaders could break, and we still have the original electronic copies stored on the servers.
I would trust a huge redundant electronic storage mediums over paper any day of the week. Paper absorbs water, paper dries out and crumbles, paper fades, etc., etc., etc. And before anyone mentions how their DVD's and/or CD's have stopped working over time, these are totally different backup systems then cheap burned media.
P.S. All books released in the last 20+ years are stored on a publishers servers as well. Further, all historical documents get scanned and stored in electronic form to protect against their loss. Paper isn't the permanent storage medium anymore.
Right, the only need for paper books is if humanity loses the ability to create electricity. In that case, it will indeed to be nice to huddle in the cold with our paper copies of David Copperfield, but I suspect our problems will be worse than whether or not the book gets wet.
Apart from that apocalyptic scenario, we continue to have electricity and thus we have ereaders. Far easier to create backup copies of our books this way. And all it takes is for one person on this planet to have an electronic copy, and then we are all one bit torrent away from having the book too.
Apart from that apocalyptic scenario, we continue to have electricity and thus we have ereaders. Far easier to create backup copies of our books this way. And all it takes is for one person on this planet to have an electronic copy, and then we are all one bit torrent away from having the book too.
And based on the movie Soylent Green, we can use stationary bikes to charge batteries to run our electric devices!
It's Already Happening..Unfortunately
It is unfortunate that my city, Hazleton PA, just saw it's last book store close down, despite this city and it's suburbs account for almost 75,000 people. Sad.
It is unfortunate that my city, Hazleton PA, just saw it's last book store close down, despite this city and it's suburbs account for almost 75,000 people. Sad.
And they will continue to close. It is sad but next time you're in a book store for a while, people watch. You have the coffee sippers there for free wifi, the no place to go people who use it as a library, the browse for 10 minutes until my haircut/manicure/etc appointments and very, very few buyers.
You can also tell books are selling less and less by the amount of floor space book stores give to non-book items. And I bet that stuff doesn't sell all that well.
Yeah, just like housing prices can *never* go down right? People routinely fail to take into account possibilities that extend beyond their own lifespan. There is little chance that the world will collapse tomorrow but a greater and greater chance there will some type of major upheaval in two hundred or two thousand years. It's happened a number of times already.
No one may care much about David Copperfield, but a book on neurosurgery or engineering might be helpful. Again, I'm not saying we should prevent the transition to digital books, only to think about long term preservation of knowledge that doesn't necessarily rely on public utilities.
I don't think so. I'm supportive of digital consumption. I happily use both iTunes and vinyl for my musical needs, but I think books are at least one thing in society that will be a constant. My dad owns a Kindle that I've used, and I've read ebooks off of my Macbook and off of friends' iPads, and I really do prefer actual books. But if someone would rather go digital, that's just fine by me.
I think they will coexist peacefully, but I'm kinda skeptical that ebooks are going to catch on quite as much as people predict they will.
I think they will coexist peacefully, but I'm kinda skeptical that ebooks are going to catch on quite as much as people predict they will.
Who will rely on public utilities? Within a hundred or two hundred years in your scenario, we'll have our own personal power generation devices.
I think so but I also hope it doesn't happen. My dad and I are avid readers and were just discussing it, he has a kindle for travel but still buys a lot of books I have a new iPad but have not used iBooks yet and a kindle I got for near free from amazon I haven't even turned on yet. I really prefer real books SO much more, I can't imagine no borders or barnes and noble. But I think it will happen mainly because of amazon, they're kindle plus they have cheap book prices for those who do still want that option. I think amazon and websites will be the only way to get printed books eventually before they finally fad altogether and we have to switch to ebooks but hopefully not.
Most of the really avid readers I know have moved over to using ereaders. All of them prefer the experience.
It seems there is an argument that it won't take much of a shift to kill the paperback at least. Back to my anecdotal evidence - most of the people I know who buy a lot of new books now buy ebooks. Whilst the unit cost of printing a paperback isn't really a significant % of the price, the cost of a *print run* is significant. If most of the people who would have bought those books aren't buying them, then a publisher needs to do smaller print runs, and the unit cost of publishing goes up. Rinse and repeat (i.e. more expensive to do a small print run, price of pbook goes up, print run size goes down).
As the size of individual print runs declines, then printers may need to charge more to keep in business. It seems on the face of it a vicious circle that could happen reasonably quickly (ten years?).
Casual readers seem (to me anyway), less likely to pay more for their paperbacks, which is actually what I think will happen soon enough. Thus they may actually be forced into ereading.
Niche books I can see existing for awhile. I buy a reasonable amount of photography and art books, and I still get these in paper. I suspect that versions for iPad and similar may actually work quite nicely though, especially if publishers add value (create slide shows of images from books, links to order prints et cetera).
As for archival quality. Very few of the paperbooks I have bought over the last 30 years have been of good enough quality to last a couple of decades. Most of my paperbacks fall apart after two or three reads, and I am reasonably careful with books.
Hardbacks and 'special editions' I can see existing for awhile, but more in the way that these are collectible items rather than books to be read.
It seems there is an argument that it won't take much of a shift to kill the paperback at least. Back to my anecdotal evidence - most of the people I know who buy a lot of new books now buy ebooks. Whilst the unit cost of printing a paperback isn't really a significant % of the price, the cost of a *print run* is significant. If most of the people who would have bought those books aren't buying them, then a publisher needs to do smaller print runs, and the unit cost of publishing goes up. Rinse and repeat (i.e. more expensive to do a small print run, price of pbook goes up, print run size goes down).
As the size of individual print runs declines, then printers may need to charge more to keep in business. It seems on the face of it a vicious circle that could happen reasonably quickly (ten years?).
Casual readers seem (to me anyway), less likely to pay more for their paperbacks, which is actually what I think will happen soon enough. Thus they may actually be forced into ereading.
Niche books I can see existing for awhile. I buy a reasonable amount of photography and art books, and I still get these in paper. I suspect that versions for iPad and similar may actually work quite nicely though, especially if publishers add value (create slide shows of images from books, links to order prints et cetera).
As for archival quality. Very few of the paperbooks I have bought over the last 30 years have been of good enough quality to last a couple of decades. Most of my paperbacks fall apart after two or three reads, and I am reasonably careful with books.
Hardbacks and 'special editions' I can see existing for awhile, but more in the way that these are collectible items rather than books to be read.
Last edited:
Actually, that is a very big issue. Google the term "digital dark age" to see what I mean.
NASA faced this problem. Some of their early computer records were stored, on a server with multiple backups...however, no one knew how to read the data anymore. As computers had changed etc. The technology to read the original files was lost. As many of the original programers were dead, they had no way of easily reconstituting the files. They had to spend years reverse engineering the code to retrieve the data.
Just think of how many websites have gone offline and are not stored on archive.org, or try and run a program from 1990, see if it still works.
I was in a bookshop with some books from five hundred years ago...how many pieces of software have survived 50 years?
There's a big difference between using tape backups in one place and what we use today. Further, the proliferation of information that was not available in the 60's and 70's means that no longer is any data stored in just one place, but in myriad of places and on multiple servers. And frankly with the advent of ereaders, we are now housing electronic versions of books in many many servers and many many ereaders. The possibility that we will lose any one particular book in its entirely is considerably greater than losing paper copies.
If you really are going to point to issues of technology being the reason we will lose our books, then I'll point to all of the historical events such as mass book burnings / natural disasters / fading / etc. that has caused a greater harm to historical literature than a perceived issue that we MIGHT some day not be able to retrieve all electronic copies of a book.
Further, shutting down of websites is not a valid argument. Any valued data/information on any given website would have been posted/discussed/sold/etc on/to 100's of other sites. Again the proliferation of information that we have today means that we no longer store information in a single source. That's the beauty of the information age.
The issue with the digital dark age is not so much that the data will be lost, it is that the ability to read the data will be lost.
The BBC Domesday project stored information on laser disc, the discs are relatively easy to find, the players not so much. Even if you manage to get a player, the data stored on the disc would make no sense to a modern computer, that 'language' is gone.
I found a floppy disc of mine from 1992. I was able to read it...kinda. The text was half readable and half garbage. I think there was some formatting information written into the file that my 2005 computer couldn't understand. I had to manually read through it repair sections.
The data itself was not damaged in any way, but the ability to read and interpret that data was long gone.
You are right, books do fade etc. However people have been working with paper for a long time and museums etc are experts at preserving it. Digital files are relatively new and because of this the ability to preserve files is a new and uncharted territory.
Look at iPod games. Remember when the classic iPod had games? They are not compatible with the iPod touch, the iPod shuffle dosnt play it, neither does the new nano. I think the only one left is the classic which some people expect to be discontinued soon so if that happens...what happens to the games? That is the way I understand the digital dark age, the files are there but no one can use them.
Meanwhile a five-hundred year old book, I can go in, pick it up and read it...provided I wear special gloves of course
The BBC Domesday project stored information on laser disc, the discs are relatively easy to find, the players not so much. Even if you manage to get a player, the data stored on the disc would make no sense to a modern computer, that 'language' is gone.
I found a floppy disc of mine from 1992. I was able to read it...kinda. The text was half readable and half garbage. I think there was some formatting information written into the file that my 2005 computer couldn't understand. I had to manually read through it repair sections.
The data itself was not damaged in any way, but the ability to read and interpret that data was long gone.
You are right, books do fade etc. However people have been working with paper for a long time and museums etc are experts at preserving it. Digital files are relatively new and because of this the ability to preserve files is a new and uncharted territory.
Look at iPod games. Remember when the classic iPod had games? They are not compatible with the iPod touch, the iPod shuffle dosnt play it, neither does the new nano. I think the only one left is the classic which some people expect to be discontinued soon so if that happens...what happens to the games? That is the way I understand the digital dark age, the files are there but no one can use them.
Meanwhile a five-hundred year old book, I can go in, pick it up and read it...provided I wear special gloves of course
A tablet will never replace a book for me. The look and feel of a real book just has something special. Tablets are just electronic devices that simulate books, but can't compete with real books in my opinion. Plus, if you're reading a bloody exciting chapter on your tablet and suddenly your battery dies, won't you be either frustrated or get angry at the tablet because you can't go on reading?
I've used my iPad while connected to a power source just fine.....
Edit: Possible Power Sources: Wall outlet, Laptop (including running off battery), back up external batteries, DC car adapters, etc.
Yes, I plug it in and just keep reading. Plus, you get a low battery warning at, I think 10%. Plenty of time to finish that exciting chapter once you get the warning. If you ignored the warning and just kept reading, you only have yourself to blame if the tablet shuts down just as the detective is about to reveal the criminal.
What? There's lots of data still stored in just one place. Yes, it is doubtful that every electronic copy of David Copperfield will be lost to history, but a better comparison is comparing a digital document of which there is only one copy to a paper document of which there is only one copy. Some information is endlessly reduplicated, but other stuff isn't (the BBC Domesday is one good example). You might say that it is easy to make multiple copies of digital documents, but this is not necessarily so, and just because it might be easy doesn't mean someone is actually doing it. Unless you have people specifically tasked with backing up and maintaining all digital documents then some will be lost over time in ways that they wouldn't be, if they were on paper.
If I leave a piece of paper with text on it on my shelf, it will stay there for a very long time and be readable 500 years from now, without any intervention. If I put a hard drive or disc on my shelf, good luck reading it 500 years from now, unless you have someone tasked with porting it over to new media all the time.
The problem is knowing ahead of time what data is going to be valued in the future. Just because it is valued now doesn't mean it will be worth anything later on and vice-versa.
I don't think that's true. Do we have examples of books from the year 1510 all over the place, let alone on your shelf (which is not likely to last 500 years either, not to mention the house in which the shelf sits).
People assume too much of paper. Most paper nowadays is cheap and won't last decades, let alone centuries.
It's all moot anyway. The age of paper is dying.
I've always been a fan of having a physical copy of a book or magazine. However, I got sick of paying for ad ridden magazines. So magazines are mostly out of the equation for me. I can get all the information I need online for free.
When it comes to books, I enjoy reading as much as possible. I always enjoyed having a small collection of books and actually going out to the bookstore. This was something that I simply found entertaining (looking at interesting books). For Christmas I got a Nook, and while skeptical, I love it.
I was going to go for the iPad but I don't want the LCD screen to harm my eyes. The electronic ink is perfect and very suitable as a replacement to a physical book. The prices are also cheaper than driving out to a store and purchasing the book.
Not to mention that "Going Green" is the seemingly popular thing now-a-days. In the end bookstores will slowly vanish, however, companies probably will stay afloat thanks to most major bookstores offering e-books or some type of e-reader of their own.
-JTM
When it comes to books, I enjoy reading as much as possible. I always enjoyed having a small collection of books and actually going out to the bookstore. This was something that I simply found entertaining (looking at interesting books). For Christmas I got a Nook, and while skeptical, I love it.
I was going to go for the iPad but I don't want the LCD screen to harm my eyes. The electronic ink is perfect and very suitable as a replacement to a physical book. The prices are also cheaper than driving out to a store and purchasing the book.
Not to mention that "Going Green" is the seemingly popular thing now-a-days. In the end bookstores will slowly vanish, however, companies probably will stay afloat thanks to most major bookstores offering e-books or some type of e-reader of their own.
-JTM