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The new bibliomaniacs

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Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#21

Post by dylan604 »

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.

I hope you're saying that is only applicable to you personally and not applying that to every other human on the planet. There are plenty of real world advantages a physical book has over an ebook, even if you can't think of them. On of my favorites was not having to turn my book off during airplane take off and landing. Also, books do not run out of battery so they do not need to be recharged. You can have multiple books open at the same time, admittedly, this is more for during research times and not just a simple reading session. But I'm not going to sit here typing out every single difference I can think of just because you can't think of any

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#22

Post by dylan604 »

black6 wrote: post #2

> Buyers and sellers alike pointed to the same reason: growing up in the digital age has intensified the desire for analogue objects and tangible connections to the past. There is something special about holding history in your hands. Books don't change. The online written word is subject to revision and change, as are ebooks. A physical volume which one owns and holds cannot be memory-holed.

There's plenty of books that have revisions, but yes, the first version does not physically change. Then again, other than collectors, I don't know many people that have multiple books of each revision/reprint of the same book. To your point, it's not like you can read a book, go to bed, and then wake up to a modified book. However, you could damage your book and go to have it replaced with a different version. Say you loan/give your copy away knowing you can get a new one easier than having your recipient get a copy for themselves. Your new one could be different. It's happened to me

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#23

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

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.

An embarrassingly large number of epubs have absolute no care put into formatting, in my experience. That and how do I get my "old book paper smell" fix and those beautifully illustrated hardback covers neatly lined on my shelves?

Otherwise, I agree.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#24

Post by Shellban »

black6 wrote: post #18
bonoboTP wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital files that you store on your own storage media with free software also can't change (without your intervention). But in new generations many only have phones, not even laptops.

Absolutely, and the future where everything digital is "in the cloud" seems closer and closer every day. RAM and SSD costs skyrocketing sure is squeezing out the consumer and making her more dependent on cloud-based services.

I am just hoping that the cost will eventually go down in a few years, and we will be able to start homelabbing again.

My server drives are not going to last forever...

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#25

Post by dsr_ »

dylan604 wrote: post #19
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'm not an ebook reader, but I would have assumed that these apps would have some sort of indication if you've read a book or not and if you've not read to the end some sort of progress. Like opening an ebook that you did not complete should hopefully take you to where you left off at a minimum. I'd also expect your app to have a management type of display where I'd expect some sort of sorting/filtering where you can…

If I use the web interface to my self-hosted library, each book's cover is shown along with a progress bar if it has ever been opened in the web interface.

If I use the OPDS interface, that doesn't happen; I suppose it would be nice to push some reading information back. Sync between reading devices is handled by koreader-sync, so I can pick up any device running koreader and be on the page where I left off.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#26

Post by skydhash »

dylan604 wrote: post #19
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'm not an ebook reader, but I would have assumed that these apps would have some sort of indication if you've read a book or not and if you've not read to the end some sort of progress. Like opening an ebook that you did not complete should hopefully take you to where you left off at a minimum. I'd also expect your app to have a management type of display where I'd expect some sort of sorting/filtering where you can…

They do, but a physical book has a presence that digital books lack. Like weight, cover material, print quality. I can learn from digital books fine and read novels on an ereader. But a physical book anchor your memory like no other.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#27

Post by skydhash »

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.

In terms of content, there’s not much pros. But we are physical creatures and the physicality of a book can be an (pleasurable?) experience in itself.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#28

Post by raddan »

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.

I have a similar feeling when it comes to my music collection, some of which includes rare recordings. I ripped everything and have it at my fingertips on my phone, computer, etc, but I often find that I’ve forgotten when I have. When I was younger, I kept it all on a shelf. Browsing one’s music collection (or a friend’s) was always a pleasant way to spend an evening socializing. With apps, that is all gone. I have recurring fantasies about building some kind of physical music player, with cartridges that one could insert into a “player”. The actual music would be stored centrally, but this would be more like a mnemonic device to make browsing more enjoyable. I could imagine a similar thing for ebooks.

Re: The new bibliomaniacs

#29

Post by esafak »

madcaptenor wrote: post #11
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 share this feeling. When I want to free up some space, the books I get rid of are the ones I don't remember reading.

Aren't they the ones you'd want to read?
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