Ew Technology Re: [Publib] Books and Kindle

[Michael Schofield]

Hmm. I am more inclined to agree with Seth Godin (quoted in The Futurist 
"The 21st Century Writer") 
[http://www.wfs.org/May-June%20files/Futwrite1.htm] that "books are becoming 
souvenirs." This isn't because the Kindle is particularly jawesome, but 
because it makes commercial sense for publishers to cut out that messy, 
papery medium between the Information and the Informee (i.e., many 
'publishers'--like F & W Publications (formerly)--are doffing the 
association--F & W Media). I don't think books and bookstores are dead, but 
if technology continues in the vein (and unless we're talking Kurt Russel in 
Escape from LA it will!), then they'll definitely be novelties. 

Libraries have the advantage of not disappearing when the power goes out, 
however. Hmmmmmmmm. I'm hopping on the bandwagon for my 
don't-need-to-heft-books (the guilty pleasures), because it costs money to 
store them!
 


-----Original Message-----
From: MichaelMay.59213074 at bloglines.com
To: publib at webjunction.org
Cc: mmay at cspl.us
Date: 5 Aug 2008 16:33:17 -0000
Subject: Re: [Publib] Books and Kindle


I gave Kindle a try recently. I downloaded and read Lost on Planet China by
J. Maarten Troost, which was OK. I should have waited for    
Ghost Train to
the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux.
But Theroux will be much better in print, anyway.

What I really wanted
was Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don
Borchert, but I couldn't find it in the Kindle store. Hmmph!

Ironically,
I selected a trial subscription to the Washington Post, and it is very good
in electronic format. Of course, the op-ed columnist cited below, Richard
Cohen, is dead wrong, Kindle is not "the beginning of the end [of] books as
books." And too bad he doesn't mention public libraries in his blurb.

There's
an element of subversiveness to books and public libraries which Kindle 
definitely
lacks. Kindle is a controlled device, and books within it are exactly that,
books trapped within a device. Or better yet, they are illusions of books
trapped within a device. Cohen might come to understood this after he uses
Kindle, and might then realize why books and libraries and maybe even 
bookstores
will persist.

Mike in Dubuque

--- Susan Vittitow" <SVITTi at state.wy.us
wrote:
>From the Washington Post this morning
> 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/04/AR2008080401823.html





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