apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

No e-readers for me, no thanks. I have enough screens to look at all day as it is, and so enjoy the simple pleasure of reading a book at night before bed. Books are beautiful and essential; they've been around for eons and, I think, definitely deserve to be fought for. Long live books! The real kind!

I think the Utne Reader and several other sites I've seen probably have it right: people like books as a physical object. The content will end up in all sorts of formats, but the object is irreplacable.

I like e-books for stuff out of copywrite that I would probably have gone to the library for. Downloading it free to my iPhone works well and makes sure that if I'm trapped on a slow bus or waiting for an appointment or something I have something to read. The books that I love and pounce on when I find them hardcover will always be in book form for me. The physical object is lovely to hold and has it's aesthetic pleasures as well as being something I can do as I please with. Unless/until e-books can be loaned out or resold or traded they can't replace physical books. Unless/until I and people like me can do those things, we won't pay for e-books.

Like lakegenva3 I look at computer screens all day, and I loathe the idea of adding another to my routine. As someone who reads voraciously I prefer the tactile nature of books; it means something to handle the text and the weight of the book. Plus I have a thing about reading in the bath and I've dropped too many books in the water to think that using an e-reader would be a good call. Books dry out but I doubt the apple pad would fare so well.

If people are concerned about wasted paper products they should look more at the daily waste coming from their homes and worry less about books.

The people who will switch to e-books in the beginning are the same people who currently grabs a cheap paperback at the airport for disposable reading. Yet even with digital archives like Project Gutenberg - there will still be a demand for high quality prints of the classics and other books that mean something to the reader.

I think that you'll find more physical publishers moving away from these inexpensive paperbacks, and moving toward more ornate print-on-demand hardbacks for collectors. No one (ok, someone probably does) wants another romance novel sitting on their shelf, but a good leather-backed edition of your favorite book will always have a spot on your shelf.

And until toddlers stop chewing on their books, I'm pretty sure the market for those in print will still do just fine.

I’ve got a pretty mixed view of these gadgets.
The “debate” about e-readers is a debate among really really privileged people. Would an ereader be practical in a refugee camp? I’m not sure how available the internet globally, but I do know that having traveled in the developing world that it’s not universal. Neither is potable water.
From an environmental perspective, I’ve read it argued (in a book! From the library!) that the energy required to create something that is durable, does not require energy to use, can be reused indefinitely and is easy to share, and is easily recycled if no longer useful favors buying a paper copy of for example an excellent cookbook or a novel one wishes to enjoy for a lifetime. I also don’t love that it’s a new thing that will need constant recharging, create e-waste, and will be continually made obsolete by the newest generation. At their best, E-readers should replace forms of print that people treated as disposable – magazines and newspapers, constantly updated textbooks, cheap paperbacks, comic books. Personally, I won’t even consider it until content is cheap or free, compatible across platforms, and the reader is under $50 and easily recycled or built to last.
Further, an e-reader could never replace the many pleasures a book holds. I love every aspect of the tactile experience – turning the page, the weight of them in my hand, the imprint of the type on paper. How older books have rough cut edges. The smell of them. Literature is a meeting of minds; I love to share and borrow books. I love claiming books from thriftstores and used bookstores and finding notes in the margins, exclamation points and underlining or criticisms. I love how cookbooks from the library have stains on them from being used in someone’s kitchen. Hell I love libraries. Take a room and fill it with ideas and knowledge and that is what a library is. What could be better?
I’m all for progress but to me, this isn’t a product that creates meaningful change for those who need it most, it’s just something new to buy.

I don't want to read comic books on an e-reader. I don't want to look at art books on an e-reader. I certainly don't want to cozy up in bed with a piece of tech.

I don't want to go into the library one day and check out software. That'll be a sad and eye-straining day.

I cannot afford one, and don't think i'd get one if I could.

I'm an avid reader, always have been. I have 175 linear feet of floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books. I got an Amazon Kindle for Christmas (after wanting one for three years). So far, I love my Kindle. It doesn't mean I no longer read books or buy new hardcover books. It just gives me an easier option for taking multiple books with me whenever I leave home.

Books have a future, but what sort of one is hard to say. Research has found that the codex, the technical term for a book as we use it, is the ideal means of information retrieval when dealing with physical media; it is set up in serial form but allows random access, and comparing 2 or more pages of content can be done quickly and easily, while ereaders have to drop one page and call up another, etc. Multiple screens make it easier, but add expense. If they could make flexible epaper, then an electronic codex, with a number of pages for content and the electronics in the spine, say, would make something almost ideal. It would still require batteries, however.
The very long term is the question. Some years ago, there was an article in Scientific American on how media tend to outlive their medium, and at an accelerating rate. It opened with a picture of a page from the Book of Kells, a thousand years old and still quite legible, and commented that the U.S. Government still owned the tapes with the raw data from the 1970 Census but did not own a single computer which could read them (the article was written ca. 10 years ago). Archival photographs from the beginnings of chemical photography are still legible; how many of the first digital photos any of you took are still around? And can you still display them? Books can last indefinitely, if made from the proper materials and given proper care, but electronic media go obsolete constantly (think video tapes; you can still find VCRs, but no one makes new commercial tapes anymore, and people don't want to watch anything so low-resolution on their HDTVs). And each time a new medium obsoletes an older one, new software and/or hardware is necessary until NO one can access the old media, even if the files still exist. And electronic media, of whatever type, in the final analysis still need a source of electricity; books do not.
Personally, I enjoy books, and have many of them (less than I used to; we had a house fire 10 years ago where we took 90% casualties in books). I also have an ereader, which I use for reading for pleasure. But I use codices whenever possible for working, for the reasons I mentioned above; I can cover a table with books open to the relevant pages and compare them easily. I think, for a while to come, physical books will stay relevant for information, and especially for harsh environments (no wall plugs, dust, etc.), but ereaders will take over much of the market for entertainment reading.

I love the fact that i can pick up an e-reader and read over something quickly. But there is no way i'm getting rid of my favorites out of my book collection for an e-reader.
Faves stay on the shelf, reference material or books to read while traveling go on the e-reader.

Oh, I hope books are still around in 100 years, there is nothing like holding a book and reading in bed on a cold night. I work in a library and we have all kinds of media, it is reassuring to see patrons check out e-books along with dvds and regular books. So I think books will be around for those of us who need to feel paper when we read.

I LOVE my books

Is trying to read from a screen such a good thing for our eyes after working with them all day? It's a strain for me to try and read the assignments I've been getting emailed for a class I'm taking - would be so much better to have the information in print. Also, scrolling down a drawing means I'm losing the overall impression of what I'm supposed to be seeing.

I miss books.

Books, though made of paper, are not really an environmental issue unless they are made, consumed, and then simply thrown away. Most avid readers purchase books to keep and share, not for quick disposal. I would compare a good book to a good piece of furniture. I would never consider a family heirloom wooden chair a serious threat to my environmental sustainability, and neither would I consider a good book. An environmental purist may question a book's use of natural resources, but we all know that on the totem pole of endangered resources, wood is at the bottom of the list. There are sustainable ways to harvest wood and environmentally-conscious ways to print and distribute books.

eReaders are fabulous for replacing disposable texts, articles, periodicals, and news. In fact, I purchased one for my mother in-law for Christmas, since she is legally blind and can purchase digital copies (and zoom the text) for less money than purchasing a bunch of large print edition books.

I don't think books will ever be completely replaced. If they are, I will be hoarding them as people throw them away... Send them my way!

I love reading and typically read a few books at a time (really savoring them and stretching them out, you know?)

My boyfriend got me a Kindle for Christmas and while I love that the screen doesn't have glare or give eye strain and you can carry a ton of books on one little device...there's something about a good tangible book.

I think there's pros and cons to either, but no matter what I hope REAL books never become obsolete.