I bought Andrea a Kindle brand electronic book reader for Christmas. She likes it. And I learned something about the future of reading.
The gadget feels like a small clipboard, about the thickness of a “legal” pad, of height and width similar to a sheet of regular letter paper. It has an easy-to-read screen. Learning how to operate it takes about ten minutes.
Not long after she opened the package, she used it to buy her first “e-book” from Amazon.com. She bought a newly-issued novel, available in book stores only as a hardcover costing close to US $30. She paid Amazon US $10 for the electronic edition. In less than one minute it arrived in her Kindle via a wireless connection.
The technology feels obvious from the start. I must not be the only person who feels this way. Amazon reported selling more e-books on the day after Christmas than physical books.
It piqued my interest. During the past week I learned that many, many books are available in electronic form. Want to be amazed? Click here to connect with “Google Books”. If the publication you want is old enough to be in the public domain, then it might well be available at no cost (not counting the internet connection itself.) For example, a few moments ago I was reading a 1753 print of Shakespeare’s King Richard II. If I wanted to, I could download it at no cost.
The Kindle is such a good idea that it already boasts a number of competitors. Sony makes one, and so does Barnes & Noble. Many more to come, surely. Features vary; for example, Sony’s works with software from Adobe to support time-limited “borrowing” of e-books. In other words, it may soon be possible to check a book out of the library wirelessly. No need to bother returning it, either, because when the alloted time ends it simply vanishes off your machine.
Here is my question: as books become available for little or no cost electronically, how long will it take for physical publishing to dry up? I expect that to happen rapidly. Physical libraries are expensive to operate, making them vulnerable to online alternatives. Let me put it plainly: when people can “borrow” a book from a library in a distant, major city, then what is the point of all those small-town public libraries?
Free access to books has been fundamental to an educated citizenry in a self-governing democracy. The new technology creates a troubling development, if it means that people will need to purchase equipment and internet service in order to gain access to books. At the cutting edge of change, that means literacy could become even more strongly correlated with having financial means.