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The new bibliomaniacs

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Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#31

Post by dakiol »

armchairhacker wrote: post #12

Personally, I don’t see any advantage of a real book over an ebook (locally stored) in an e-ink reader. And there are disadvantages: ergonomics, space, cost, environment. EDIT: books last longer (decades or centuries) than SSDs. But M-DISCs can allegedly last for millennia.

For me the advantage is simplicity. I pick up the book and I read it. No matter where or when, I know I can read it. If the book gets damaged, I pick up another book, I don't mind. The problem with digital books is that I need 3 different things working together: 1) a (charged) reading device, 2) corresponding software, 3) the actual digital book.

So the reading device can be put in unmaintained mode any time by the company who sells it. That sucks. Same goes for the corresponding software, although in this case I have more flexibility sometimes (i.e., I can install some open source software... but that's a hassle in itself). As per the actual digital book, don't get me started with DRM. One can pirate books, though, but then some people have ethical considerations.

I typically buy second-hand books. It's the best deal for me because I don't have the feeling to be super protective with them, and they are very cheap.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#32

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #7

The problem with ebooks to me is that they have no real physical presence (obviously) and therefore I have a harder time remembering if I read them, and where I read them. On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection…

[deleted]

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#33

Post by stuxnet79 »

Insanity wrote: post #10
keiferski wrote: post #7

The problem with ebooks to me is that they have no real physical presence (obviously) and therefore I have a harder time remembering if I read them, and where I read them. On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection…

I highlight often when reading on my kindle. I have created a small program that scrapes my highlights and sends me a daily email with one of them. I get it before I wake up and it’s the first thing I read once I check my email (usually that happens after my morning reading). I find that this helps remember books that I read years ago, and usually the single quote is enough to jolt a series of memories about the book…

Could you share more details on how you were able to set this up? Do you use Koreader?

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#34

Post by ynac »

The signs sure seem to be indicating a Gen Z rollback to the analog and middle tech. Newspapers, books, cursive clubs, letter writing (pen pals), cassettes and albums, printed photographs, even carb/gas based auto hacking. These are just in my circle, but I have seen stories in the paper too. Anyone else seeing interesting trends from the youngers? I especially like to see the blending of new and old - like building a music server for VLPFM neighborhood station, hyper local phone co, text clubs on paper, etc.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#35

Post by utopiah »

keiferski wrote: post #17
utopiah wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered printing a book side and putting it on a wall as a growing poster while keeping a Calibre or Zotero collection in sync?

No but I have thought about making some sort of card or pseudo-book. Still not quite the same though, as the object wouldn’t be the one you actually read, just a reminder.

TBH I'd rather have both and in sync, namely physical in place, nearby, and digital always with me. Unfortunately I can't afford that so I have a messy compromise.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#36

Post by throwup238 »

keiferski wrote: post #17
utopiah wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered printing a book side and putting it on a wall as a growing poster while keeping a Calibre or Zotero collection in sync?

No but I have thought about making some sort of card or pseudo-book. Still not quite the same though, as the object wouldn’t be the one you actually read, just a reminder.

Make each pseudo-book a cheap cover around your ereader and just stick it in while reading :)

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#37

Post by lukeschlather »

keiferski wrote: post #7

The problem with ebooks to me is that they have no real physical presence (obviously) and therefore I have a harder time remembering if I read them, and where I read them. On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection…

I have mixed feelings about Kindle, but I mostly read books on my phone these days, and my Kindle library is always there. I also have a physical bookshelf, but if I'm not home I can't review it so in some ways it's often less tangible than my Kindle library which I always carry with me.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#38

Post by tokioyoyo »

ynac wrote: post #34

The signs sure seem to be indicating a Gen Z rollback to the analog and middle tech. Newspapers, books, cursive clubs, letter writing (pen pals), cassettes and albums, printed photographs, even carb/gas based auto hacking. These are just in my circle, but I have seen stories in the paper too. Anyone else seeing interesting trends from the youngers? I especially like to see the blending of new and old - like building…

As you mentioned, it’s trends. There’s nothing really sticky or mass-adoption like. This also isn’t necessarily new, as polaroids have been trending for over a decade now.

Most of the same kids still scroll instagram, listen on spotify and etc. At least that’s what I’m seeing around me.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#39

Post by lo_zamoyski »

keiferski wrote: post #7

The problem with ebooks to me is that they have no real physical presence (obviously) and therefore I have a harder time remembering if I read them, and where I read them. On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection…

> I don’t have the same thing for the ebooks I’ve read, and it gives me a weird feeling of amnesia.

This agrees with studies that show that memory retention is better among students when using physical books rather than ebooks. That's because we're embodied. The book is a physical object with physical features. These intelligible physical features create associations (spatial anchoring, sensory engagement) that reinforce memory. You also get a sense of progress as you read. For instance, when I read something, I better remember at what depth certain content is, and given the depth, I know more or less what is in that part of the book. You could think of it in terms of spatial indexing or in terms of data locality.

People think the medium doesn't matter. They think that it's just a matter of encoding. But the medium very much matters, because the senses are involved in memory formation in all sorts of ways. It's also why handwriting leads to better retention of information than typing.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#40

Post by julianeon »

armchairhacker wrote: post #12

Personally, I don’t see any advantage of a real book over an ebook (locally stored) in an e-ink reader. And there are disadvantages: ergonomics, space, cost, environment. EDIT: books last longer (decades or centuries) than SSDs. But M-DISCs can allegedly last for millennia.

There are some fields where there are a real measurable advantages of physical books, essentially as an archive.

I can name two:

1) Chemical Engineering 2) Classics

In both cases the physical book may be the only place to find certain kinds of valuable info.

In the case of Chem E, I was told this by my father, also a Chem E, who said that some of these old books contained values and tests that were found nowhere else. And while a lot of that is available in modern form, not all of it is.

In the case of classics, I'm cribbing from David Butterfield here, who has a great book tour on YouTube where expands on this at length (4+ hours).

In the 18th and 19th century the level of education was higher and there were simply more people around who were working at the highest level in the field. Their speculations were written down in physical books and nowhere else. Many of these were valuable and showed new insights you won't find elsewhere else, especially for professionals in the field.

Here's an example. The copies that we have of, say, Homer, are copies of copies. Pretend for a moment that Homer actually wrote in English. We can imagine a line in the "original" (a copy of a copy), that says:

He of the stout quarrel chest said:

It kinda works - stout men quarrel, I guess. But you know what would work even better? He of the stout barrel chest. You can make a case that this was an instance of bad copying and should be corrected in editions going forward, especially if you can cite additional evidence.

Multiple this by the Greek & Roman corpus and all the possible permutations and you have a good reason to turn to those books that earlier writers thought very deeply about.

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