So...

[altivo]

It's been a strange day. I didn't get a lot done, other than the usual chores. Yesterday's blog post got a lot of replies that needed more commentary, for one thing. Then I came in from feeding horses and sheep and found several messages in my Earthlink mail that had been somehow lost in the spam trap. It's a wonder they weren't deleted. Those went back a couple of months and needed replies at least out of politeness, though some of them made requests that had already expired by now. One was an invitation from Alex at Bad Dog Books urging me to set up an "authors central" page at Amazon.

Seems like overkill, since I have only one story that appears in one book on Amazon, but I was curious enough to go through the motions. Of course, it's a marketing tactic, and Amazon asks for a photo and a biographical statement, which ought to be no problem. Except... they ask that the photo show only a portrait of you, without friends, mates, or pets. I couldn't find one. I finally sent them one of myself with a dog. Heck, lots of authors appear on the backs of their books in a photo with their dog. Big name authors, like Dean Koontz and Nora Roberts, in fact. So we'll see what happens with that. Apparently there's still an activation process that involves them contacting Bad Dog Books to make sure I'm not an imposter. Heh. Who'd want to impersonate me?

Speaking of Amazon, most of you probably remember the fuss in July when they decided that they had improperly distributed some materials to Kindle owners for which they did not have the correct distribution rights. So they went and deleted those books from the Kindle devices of those who had bought them. Without asking first, without any advance warning... Well, the outcry was enough to force their CEO, Jeff Brazos, to issue an apology and offer to return the deleted items or credit the accounts of any user who was affected. Presumably Amazon has reached a settlement with the actual rights holder for George Orwell's novel 1984, which was one of the major items involved.

I find this particularly ironic given the facts of the case. I also find it frightening in light of the story I cited yesterday, about a prep school near Boston that is eliminating its paper library entirely in favor of online resources and a few Kindles and Sony readers. Given that the Kindle allows Amazon to delete users' content without warning or consent, the potential danger of using it for school library resources should be obvious. You are giving Amazon censorship rights over your students and faculty. Worse, we all know that computer security is tenuous at best. Suppose Amazon's control system is hacked or duplicated? Imagine an anti-evolutionist deleting all the copies of Darwin's works from all the Kindles in the world. Imagine a religious fanatic, of whatever stripe, deleting books with which he or she disagrees, in whatever subject area. This seems like a very, very bad precedent, Amazon.

I don't own a Kindle. I do own an Ebookwise reader, and I like it very much. It is smaller and lighter than the Kindle, closer to the size and weight of a mass market paperback. The screen is backlit, unlike the Kindle. It offers a huge selection of materials at lower prices than the average Kindle items I've seen listed. And it lets me load my own materials, or books from Project Gutenberg, at will. As far as I can tell, Ebookwise has no ability to censor or delete files from my device. Since it uses a removable SMC memory module, I have a backup copy of everything that's in it anyway. I can transfer files between the Ebookwise and my PC, or make a duplicate of the SMC in the Ebookwise and store it somewhere as a backup.

Neither of these devices is suitable as a substitute for printed library books, though. Both of them lock most of their titles to a single device, and do not allow them to be shared among multiple readers. A library cannot maintain a list of Kindle books, for example, and load them at will to the reading devices of individual users, nor can they transfer books from one Kindle to another (at least, not the last time I heard the details.)

I don't deny that a digital revolution is going to come and shake the foundations of publishing as we know it. I do, however, deny that the revolution is already here. The Kindle is not the revolution, or even a harbinger of revolution.

Comments

[kyhwana.livejournal.com]

I use my phone (A HTC Touch pro) as my ebook reader.. of course, it only reads txt/html/pdfs/.lit,s etcetc and the screen is pretty small, but it's just fine for reading in dull moments and I always have it on me. (It fits in my pocket nicely, etc)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

My phone will read stuff off the web, but the screen is just too small to be practical. I have a couple of first generation Sony readers here, what they called the "Bookman" from about 15 years ago. Same problem. The screen is too small, and you wear out the page forward button (or your finger.)

I've seen ebooks presented on PDAs too, like the PalmPilot or Visor. I think that screen is also too small.

The design error in that whole concept seems to come from people who don't actually read. They skim or browse, picking out bits of text. Their idea is that all you need is a sort of Google search to find the important paragraph or whatever. This may be true if you're using reference materials, but it doesn't work for actually reading a literary work.

The Kindle and Ebookwise do present a full page of text in clearly readable type, which makes them much more usable for genuine reading in my opinion.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

The whole Kindle incident shows how easy it is for a company or central authority to practice censorship on a massive scale. Not only could someone delete books, they could also alter the text or remove word or paragraphs without anyone knowing. Hey, it looks like the government is upset over a paragraph in that book criticizing the president. BEEP....all gone!

Besides, I've never had the same experience reading something off an LCD screen that I do when reading it right out of an old-fashioned book. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Studies show that people who read from laptop or desktop displays don't usually maintain a steady pace and read all the text. They skip around and are easily distracted. I agree with that, and I also find the posture required to be less comfortable for long reading sessions.

Handheld devices like the Kindle and Ebookwise do avoid some of those ergonometric issues. I don't like the Kindle form factor quite as much, and I find the absence of any backlighting to be a significant issue because the external lighting angle is more critical than it is for a paper page. It is probably adequate, though, and does have more flexibility than the monochrome LCD in the Ebookwise.

We're bound to prefer printed books, having grown up with them. I find the Ebookwise acceptable, but not perfect. It has two significant advantages. I can carry around a library of 100 books or so in one small package, and it gives me access to works that aren't readily available in dead tree editions.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

I can't believe the Kindle doesn't have a backlight. That alone would be enough for me not to buy it.

True, e-book readers do have some advantages as you mention, although I'd consider them an additional medium rather than a replacement for a book.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yup, it has no backlight. I'm not sure the "electronic paper" display even would pass light from behind. It looks quite opaque.

I agree, I have no wish to replace my printed books with an e-book reader, no matter how good. I find mine is very useful in a supplementary role, especially when traveling or otherwise constrained. I also use it to hold drafts of my own writing that I can consult for consistency while drafting up new material.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

There is one area where the Kindle truly shines and that's newspapers and magazines. Just being able to download them to a reader isn't enough, the Kindle actually goes out and gets the latest issues for you; you sit down, press a button and you've got your paper.

The Kindle is probably a poor choice for schools, though, because of its cellular modem. It's too easy for the students to use that to view stuff they're not supposed to.

I've read many hundreds of newspapers on my Kindle, and a couple dozen magazines, but I think I've only finished 5 or 6 books since I bought the first one in February 2008.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ebook formats, as I mentioned above, seem to lend themselves better to short items like newspaper articles. Most people tend not to read long literary materials well with them. However, this may also reflect the general reading habits of people most likely to purchase devices like the Kindle. Literary reading is suffering a major decline in the US, as several studies have already shown.

There is apparently a way to lock the cellular modem on a Kindle so that it can't be used without the proper authorization. Libraries quickly learned that they had to do that, or their borrowers who took a Kindle home would soon be downloading additional titles to it, billed to the library account.

The real problem with using a Kindle as a substitute for a school library is that it restricts access and exposure too much, rather than too little.

[dar-han.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted an e-book reader, for reasons different from most: in Madagascar, books tend to be a commodity. You can buy them in malls and libraries, of course, but I'll give an idea of their price: one copy of the sixth Harry Potter book would cover most if not all of my current expenses of ONE month.
You can still get books for less than that, but it'll usually mean chance will chose your book, not you. And said book will be often several years old and/or a cheap romance novel.
For me at least, the only alternative has been digital copies... I have to admit, not often legally acquired. But it's the only way I can find the books I want, most of the time. The only big problem being that I have to stay in front of the computer to read, ugh.

[dar-han.livejournal.com]

Sorry: "book store", not library. Yay the same word meaning slightly different things in different languages.

Anyway, libraries do exist here, but then again, not easily accessed, and not very furnished in books.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I figured that one out right away. I am aware of that ambiguity in French and some other languages. :D

I can well understand how an ebook reader would be desirable in your context, though for Kindle and its cousins to serve you a source of the books is still needed. These devices use a locking encryption that restricts a given copy of a book to access only by the one device with the matching serial number. And, what's worse from your point of view, the web sites that deliver or sell materials for them usually restrict their sales to the US and Canada. I presume that Amazon, with its larger market, is serving at least some European countries as well, but the copyright restrictions imposed upon the seller are also a major obstruction.

I've heard of the difficulties in obtaining books for reasonable costs in several mainland African nations, so I'm not too surprised that it's an issue in Madagascar as well.

[damnbear.livejournal.com]

Getting rid of the library was probably some pointy haired manager's grand idea of cutting costs, and not truly knowing the value he's cutting out of the students lives would be typical of a management decision in motion.

I'd think that the traditionalist book burner wouldn't have the capacity to figure out how to erase immoral (yet strangely satisfying) reading materials from kindles. Besides, digital book burning isn't as social of an event for the "which church do you belong to?" group.

I've been using my Treo as an ebook reader for about 5 months now, and have read most of the Redwall books on it thus far. I've gotten around the small screen issue with reader software that presents in readable font size, in chunks that's better suited for speed reading. It's not the perfect replacement for a book, but it's handy to have on the phone and gives me a jolt of pleasure in vibrator mode...er when I get a call.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The traditionalist book burner is probably not a tech hacker, that's true. BUT... some of these ultra-extremist wingnuts do have plenty of money and no scruples about using it to forward their idea of what is "right." They can easily hire hackers to do what they want. Or hold Amazon over a barrel and blackmail the company into doing it for them.

I see no legitimate reason for the Kindle to have such a design feature, and more than I think a bookseller should be able to break into my house and steal back the book I bought last week, even if he politely leaves a refund of my money on the table when he does it. XD

Stealing the copies of Darwin from the public library isn't as social an event as a book burning, either. Yet someone keeps taking our Darwin from the shelf and making it "disappear" without being checked out. The same thing happens to books on witchcraft.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

The Kindle is a step I think, it's like hybrid cars it's not the end result but a step on the evolution scale.

Weird that a school near Boston would get rid of all their books, I thought Massachusetts was pro learning.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

At one time Massachusetts was noted as the most liberal state in the US. Particularly since the Reagan administration, they have taken a turn to the right in many respects. This particular school, though, is a private school and a very expensive one. Only the brats of the wealthy would attend it, and "learning" is probably not the actual goal in most cases.