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Digital books wear out faster than physical books

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Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#121

Post by falcolas »

Blackthorn wrote: post #97
abracadaniel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable. An ebook takes a migration plan to remain readable. Yes you can remove DRM, but libraries cannot, they have to keep paying, and they're being sued to prevent them from preserving and migrating their data.

More than just DRM, random bit flips are a problem too. One that's been thought about by places like the Shoah Foundation.

Hence my suggestion of a good backup strategy. Which should ideally include data integrity measures such as checksums and/or integrity-aware storage mediums.

You're backup's only good if you can successfully restore it.

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#122

Post by systemicdanna »

madars wrote: post #44
systemicdanna wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a non-DRM format + an e-reader combo that allows for bookmarks, text selection, dictionary search? Ideally I would prefer to keep my Kindle but would really love to buy and own non-DRM books.

You can use Calibre to convert your ebooks to MOBI/AZW3, which Kindle accepts, and if you put your Kindle in airplane mode (so it stops getting OTA updates) and wait log enough it'll probably get a jailbreak at some point. At which point you can install KOReader for superior PDF/DjVu reading experience. Last jailbreak covers Kindle software https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346037 HN discussion: http…

This looks very promising. In addition to using KOReader I will be able to customize the lock screen and remove Amazon's upsells. I guess the only downside is that I won't be able to use WiFi or buy e-books from Amazon.

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#123

Post by [deleted] »

falcolas wrote: post #10

This is a really weird article for me. Ebooks are zip files with HTML pages (that is, text files) and images inside. That's about it. These three technologies are some of the oldest and most robust we have when it comes to digital media at large. Being concerned about reading and displaying HTML pages in a zip file in a decade is absurd. They're both already over 30 years old themselves. DRM, yes. DRM is a complete a…

[deleted]

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#124

Post by [deleted] »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #11

Planet Money did an episode on the "e-Book Wars" between libraries and publishers a week ago: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135639385/libraries-publishe... I learned a few things about digital library books that made me sad: * Publishers only allow a certain number of "rentals" of digital library books, after which the eBook license expires. * Publishers also put an expiration date on the license, so after maybe tw…

[deleted]

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#125

Post by [deleted] »

kgarten wrote: post #7

I moved my apple account between countries and lost a lot tv series and books I bought ... oh sorry I didn't buy them I bought the right to temporary view them. same with some old games/apps, they work still perfectly on my older iPhone with newest updates, yet due to changing the store and developers not "updating" them they are no longer available for me. moved to android, with linageOS.

[deleted]

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#126

Post by rootusrootus »

PaulHoule wrote: post #91
falcolas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable Not really. The paper's acidic, which means that the paper degrades to the point of not being usable without a huge amount of intervention. I have trade paperbacks which are under 20 years old whose paper are downright brittle. > but libraries canno Which is, I hate to say, irrelevant to the discussion of preserving digital documents. Libraries are getting…

My impression is that trade paperbacks really suck. Frequently the bindings crack when you open them for the first time. Mass-market paperbacks are not great but they have some minimum level of quality that is not certain in trade paperbacks.

I believe you have that backwards. Mass-market paperbacks are the bottom of the barrel, trade paperbacks are the better version.

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#127

Post by JKCalhoun »

chaxor wrote: post #108
falcolas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trade paperbacks will wear out in months or years. Zip files containing HTML documents... we'll be able to read them for a very long time.

A big point being made in this thread is that the technology for physical storage of the media becomes obsolete quickly. One could argue that the physical book itself is the original storage technology. But, as many have said, that book on Floppy disk is harder to access in today's world, and in the future, a 7200RPM hard disk external USB drive will probably be very difficult to use. It's already somewhat of a hassl…

I have a SCSI hard drive or two I cannot access.

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#128

Post by rootusrootus »

ncallaway wrote: post #89
midoridensha wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've never seen a paperback made in the 1960s-1990s? The paper is brittle and the pages are literally falling apart. You can't read paper where pieces of it have fallen off and disintegrated.

Certainly not true of every paperback from then. I wandered downstairs and found several books on my shelves printed in the '70s, '80s, and '90s in totally fine condition. On the oldest books the paper has started to yellow a touch, but are otherwise fine. But even a book from the 90s is 20-30 years old at this point. I'm not sure if that fits colloquially with a claim that they fall apart in "months to years". I've…

> I just...have never seen a book fall apart in months.

I've had the binding snap on mass market paperbacks when I opened it the first time. Not exactly a shining beacon of quality.

Re: Digital books wear out faster than physical books

#130

Post by irrational »

falcolas wrote: post #13
armchairhacker wrote: post #5

Physical books wear out in decades to centuries, computers break in years to decades. Also digital formats are constantly evolving and backwards compatibility for old formats is removed. Even without publisher/legal issues it's clear that preservation of digital media for even the next 10 years , and especially for the next 100 or 1000, is at risk. But I really wonder why is there no other major service like the Inte…

Trade paperbacks will wear out in months or years. Zip files containing HTML documents... we'll be able to read them for a very long time.

I have trade paperbacks from when the 1970s. My father has some from the 1950s. They are all perfectly fine. Maybe the ones from the 1950s are a little yellow around the edges, but that hardly affects the ability to read them.
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