Thoughts about ebooks have been bouncing around in my head for some time. Well since ebooks started becoming a trend (not sure if that is the right word for it), anyway you get the picture. Then yesterday I came across this interesting article: Will Your Children Inherit Your eBooks.
I must admit the lifespan of ebooks is something that worries me. I even asked the question to a panel of authors at the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival this year. Are authors only writing for the now? Do they believe that their books will still be available in 5, 10, 20, 100 years time? A person who works for ebook publishing (I think or they knew a fair bit about how it works) said that publishers had the responsibility to continue to make an ebook available even as formats and devices changed/updated. So when your Kindle becomes outdated and you decide to upgrade then your collection of books on the old Kindle should still be able to be read on the new Kindle - it all comes with you.
Ok, so I don't know enough about how the technology of ebook readers work but I do know that if I buy an ebook reader now and fill it with books that I think are wonderful and I would really like to keep until my daughter is old enough to enjoy them - I'm not quite convinced that I will be able to do that.
Technology changes so much and how many of us have documents from when Word etc first came out that no longer work - mainly because we probably didn't update them but at the same time we probably didn't think about whether there would be a use for them in the future. So again, if I read a book on my ebook reader and then when my daughter is older think, bugger I really should've upgraded that ebook so she could read it - but alas it is too late. However, with a print copy I don't have to worry about it - other than make sure that it doesn't get eaten by bugs or burnt or wet.
So you see my dilema? I would love to hear from anyone who understands all the technology more than I do and can reassure me that my collection of ebooks (when I have one - which will happen) will be around when my daughter is older.
Then that brings me to libraries. While we try to weed our collections regularly, there are some books that we (the universe) deem classics (see my past post on this) and don't weed - unless of course they are falling apart. How, if we move toward an ebook collection, do we keep the classics and make them accessible when platforms, technology, subscriptions etc change?
Also, if you read the Bookend Scenarios: Alternative Futures for the Public Library Network in NSW in 2039 and the scenario suggesting the fall of the internet and technology happens -- what then??
Anyway, this is what I have been pondering and I would really love to hear other's thoughts on these issues.
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