About Me
Get in Touch

Dr Rob Spence

End of the book?

Rob Spence

·

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft scans British Library

Reading stufff like this makes you wonder how long the printed book has got left. But the book has a great resilience, and I can’t imagine a time when it would be more pleasant to sit under a tree on a summer’s day with a hand held electronic device rather than a physical volume with pages.

Initiatives such as this will be important for research, but won’t, in my estimation, signal the end for the traditional book.

CC BY-SA 4.0 End of the book? by Dr Rob Spence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Comments

4 responses to “End of the book?”

  1. kat Avatar
    kat

    I own a number of ebooks. I download them, read them on the PDA and if I like them, I go over to Amazon and order the real thing. I think it is a good idea to have everything stored electronically but as you say I don’t think the end of the printed book is in sight.

    Reply
  2. Rob Spence Avatar
    Rob Spence

    …and I’m sure reading so much on a screen is bad for the eyes…
    And books don’t need a power supply either…

    Reply
  3. kat Avatar
    kat

    Have you tried reading a printed book at night without a lightbulb? 🙂 I can read my PDA under the covers. I prefer real books though.

    Reply
  4. Rob Spence Avatar
    Rob Spence

    Back to candles! When you think about it, most of the great books and great reads have been done by candlelight – basically all pre 20th century literature.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *