I like my kindle as much as the next person, as well as self host a book repo, but physical books are absolutely not a novelty of the past.
sefra1@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
That’s nice, but do people still read physical books?
IMO the best community library one can have is the internet, and sites like Anna’s Archive allow for access to pretty much every book in existence from the comfort of your own bed.
People hate me when I say this, but in my opinion physical books are a novelty of the past, sure it’s useful in an apocalypse for preservation and whatnot, but physical books are just limited and unpractical.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 day ago
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
libraries also have dvds you can rent which are awesome. they also partner with libby/cw mars for ebooks
uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Do you have any children?
sefra1@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
No I don’t.
If I had children I would teach them to download books, unless they were too young and couldn’t understand the steps, then I would download for them.
Give a man a book and he will read for a day, teach a man how to download books, and he will have literature for the rest of his life.
derfunkatron@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s widely accepted among pediatricians and psychologists that you should delay introducing your kids to screens as long as possible. We started reading to our kid when they were a newborn and there is no way in hell that I would be blasting them with a tablet screen (children’s ebooks tend to be pdfs because of all the graphics, which also rules out using e-ink readers). Reading to a child is also a pre-bedtime activity in low light where stimuli should be reduced; a tablet or e-reader is far from ideal here.
A lot of children’s books in the 0-4 range are also tactile, include lift-the-flaps, have mirrors or noisemakers, and are safe to chew on. The other thing is that in order to teach independence, the kid needs to be able to access and choose books on their own which is something a physical books and a shelf is really good at and an e-reader is really bad at.
One may argue that physical books are expensive, impractical, or whatever, but there are several organizations that send free books monthly to kids (we are subscribed to two of them). Public libraries are really good for exposing kids to books that don’t have to be purchased as well as teaching additional skills like:
- patience (can’t have a book another kid has, or have to wait until we can go to the library),
- spatial awareness (where the library is, where the children’s shelves are), and
- temporary possession of objects (the books have to be returned).
And to your earlier point about physical books being “a novelty of the past,” I would counter by saying that physical books and ebooks are not a binary pair and using them to read is not an exclusive or (the exception being children’s books).
- Textbooks are great candidates for ebook versions because of their intended use and unintended bulk; there are also enhancements to ebooks that work really well for textbooks and manuals, like search/find.
- Fast-paced novels, especially those in a series, are great candidates for ebooks particularly when the reader knows they will consume multiple books quickly.
- Physical books are preferable when dealing with images or large formats. I can’t imagine reading a coffee-table book or art book is as effective on e-reader.
- Physical books are also better options for complicated texts, especially ones that the reader needs to quickly refer to multiple sections of text while reading e.g. indices, appendices, or that chapter where a character is first introduced. I know there’s digital analogues, but they don’t work for everyone.
- E-books make sense when you want to have hundreds or thousands of books immediately on hand, or don’t want to clutter a dwelling with bookshelves.
- Physical books are great for acquiring out-of-print titles. Sure, someone may have created a decent pdf or epub of it, but there are texts that are easier to find used physical copies than a digital version.
- In a complete reversal of what I just wrote, e-books are great for finding out-of-print titles that are prohibitively expensive to acquire. Thanks to that random internet user who created that spectacular pdf.
- Digital versions of manga or comics make a lot of sense, especially when considering the amount of space those collected items require.
At the end of the day, the medium you use to read is a preference and I am a strong advocate for audiobooks, ebooks, and physical books being simultaneously available. What I am not an advocate for, is the dismissal of the print on physical media as if it is not one of the most stable and easily accessible methods for communication. No matter how you argue it, at the end of the day, ebooks and audiobooks still require mediation and energy. Those formats also impose technical and financial barriers to access (you may be savvy enough to access thousands of books for free and maintain your own e-reader that respects your privacy, but the majority of people to whom e-books are marketed to cannot). I can lend or give away a physical book to anyone I meet and they can immediately read it; the same cannot be said for digitally reformatted texts.
sefra1@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
It’s widely accepted among pediatricians and psychologists that you should delay introducing your kids to screens as long as possible.
Well, when I was a kid my favorite things where always electronics, TV, radio, music, so if I had children I would never deprive my children of electronics, no matter what the “experts” say.
A lot of children’s books in the 0-4 range are also tactile, include lift-the-flaps, have mirrors or noisemakers, and are safe to chew on. The other thing is that in order to teach independence, the kid needs to be able to access and choose books on their own which is something a physical books and a shelf is really good at and an e-reader is really bad at.
That is fair, for those kind of books I guess I have agree that they can’t replaced with digital alternatives.
Physical books are preferable when dealing with images or large formats. I can’t imagine reading a coffee-table book or art book is as effective on e-reader.
That is a good point, for those kinds of books in particular I guess physical copy is preferable.
Physical books are also better options for complicated texts, especially ones that the reader needs to quickly refer to multiple sections of text while reading e.g. indices, appendices, or that chapter where a character is first introduced. I know there’s digital analogues, but they don’t work for everyone.
Well, I have to disagree on this one, if I’m dealing with complicated texts where I need to quickly refer to multiple sections then nothing beats being able to crtl + f. Also scrolling is much faster than turning pages. But I guess it can be a personal thing.
Those formats also impose technical and financial barriers to access (you may be savvy enough to access thousands of books for free and maintain your own e-reader that respects your privacy, but the majority of people to whom e-books are marketed to cannot). I can lend or give away a physical book to anyone I meet and they can immediately read it; the same cannot be said for digitally reformatted texts.
That’s a fair argument, still, I think the financial barrier to acquire physical books overall is much much higher acquiring the same book physically. Yes you can lend a book from a library, but in my experience libraries never have anything worth reading, which means the only viable solution is paying full price for a book.
I think you are also greatly exaggerating the technical skills needed to download a book, sometimes even just searching “book name pdf download” is enough to download a book, which can be done on a smartphone that most people already own.
As for privacy, it’s true that most people don’t have devices capable of downloading and reading the book on a private system, however, buying a physical book online or lending it from a library also means the book is registered to the reader’s name electronically, in this case tied to the user’s real name and payment details.
Now I actually favor reading on a screen, over paper or e-ink, I find much more comfortable reading from an uniform light source that I can regulate and select the background and foreground color, over having to rely on natural light, which more often than not, it’s either too dark or too bright. But even if hated screens, an used e-reader can be bought for the price of only 2 or 3 physical books.
Still, it’s down to a matter of personal opinion, I understand that some people prefer to read paper the same way if I could afford and had extra space I would enjoy listening to some vinyl records, still from a practical/economical standpoint, I still think digital advantages greatly outweighs it’s disadvantages.
vladmech@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That must be why physical bookstores are seeing huge resurgence in sales I guess.