My experience with e-books and e-readers has been … interesting. I'm still undecided if I enjoy reading a book on a Kindle more than holding the actual book. I can say for sure I enjoy being able to take a portable library with me wherever I go, reading it wherever I am, and I enjoy the reading experience every bit as much as turning pages. It's taken me a while to be able to say that, but with the Kindle, I am drawn as much into the text as I am when it is printed on paper. Though, I like to own a book, as opposed to only owning a right to read my "book" on my gizmo, when it really exists "out there" in a cloud on some servers, somewhere, which download it to my device. My gizmo will grow old and I'll have to buy a new gizmo and the book in some new format…once I own a book, it's there. I don't have to upgrade it, or update it, or buy a new one in order to read it. My colleague, Laura Lane, sent me this interesting article declaring that the book will remain the better reading experience because of the "non-linear thinking" it encourages. Here's the link to the article. Here's a snippet from the article: But if we stop reading on paper, we should keep in mind what we're sacrificing: that nonlinear experience, which is unique to the codex. You don't get it from any other medium — not movies, or TV, or music or video games. The codex won out over the scroll because it did what good technologies are supposed to do: It gave readers a power they never had before, power over the flow of their own reading experience. And until I hear God personally say to me, "Boot up and read," I won't be giving it up. |
