Future of books

[Albert Chan]

On the future of the book. James Gleick
Minute 21: Nice phrase, "too many books, not enough time"

[Archilog]

Hello,
There‘s worst: too much music, not enough time.

[edited to avoid an awful grammatical error…]

[Didier Lachieze]

Too many YouTube videos, not enough time …

[Jeff_Birt]

When my niece was young she was comparing to reading a book to a tablet and stated, "Books have a superior user interface." I think she is right, books are hard to beat even though electronic media has some advantages.

[Dave Britten]

I lament how much more difficult it's become to find good technical books (database systems, development, etc.) compared to 10 years ago.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(09-24-2022 11:25 PM)Jeff_Birt Wrote:  I think she is right, books are hard to beat even though electronic media has some advantages.

Not for me. Since I bought my iPad (10 or 11 years ago) I have bought very few books, mostly because they were not available in electronic form. Everything I can read on my tablet I read on my tablet. It requires no illumination, contains thousands of book while it is smaller and lighter than a book itself, I can zoom in when I am to lazy to put on my reading glasses, it has a global search function over all books and much much more. Sooner or later I will remove all remaining books from our bookshelves to make place for calculators :-)

Regards
Max

[Garth Wilson]

I don't do e-books. I can't read them as fast, can't as quickly flip to another part I have in mind that might be related (but where I don't remember good-enough search terms to have the electronic thing find), can't pencil-in my notes etc.. When I get big data sheets, I always print them. It's just too hard to deal with them on the screen.

[DGM]

I do both printed and e-books. But I always remember Isaac Asimov on this…
A device called a book

[StephenG1CMZ]

(09-26-2022 01:29 AM)DGM Wrote:  I do both printed and e-books. But I always remember Isaac Asimov on this…
A device called a book

And don't forget - The feeling of power
https://urbigenous.net/library/power.html
(on paper computations! )

[Jlouis]

Unfortunately, too many calculators, not enough time...

[Eddie W. Shore]

I agree with Jlous.

However, I don't see books ever going away: what are you going to read when (1) the electricity goes out, (2) you are in places where there is no Wifi connection, (3) you are tired at look at your phone or computer screen?

I do think the books will be more light and paperback in the future, which is good because they are easier to carry than hardcover books.

[johanw]

(09-26-2022 01:29 AM)DGM Wrote:  I do both printed and e-books. But I always remember Isaac Asimov on this…
A device called a book

I also remember a story from Asimov where the main character re-invented manual calculations to save a lot of money on calculators (who were expensive at the time the story was written).

I almost exclisively read ebooks now. I can carry a whole library on my phone and tablet, and my digital comic collection is now so huge that if I would have bought them all I would be in serious debt now.

[johanw]

(10-01-2022 03:44 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  I agree with Jlous.

However, I don't see books ever going away: what are you going to read when (1) the electricity goes out,

Make sure your power banks are loaded (if outages are too often or too long people usually start to invest in generators, like currently in South Africa).

Quote:(2) you are in places where there is no Wifi connection,

I don't care about that. While in the EU I prefer mobile data over crappy wifi anyway, and my book collection is stored offline. 256GB microsd cards are cheap today.

Quote:(3) you are tired at look at your phone or computer screen?

Close my eyes and go to sleep.

Quote:I do think the books will be more light and paperback in the future, which is good because they are easier to carry than hardcover books.

That can still be very heavy. I wished that during my college years current tablet technology existed, and I didn't have to carry 1000+ page paperbacks the whole day. Have you ever felt the paperback version of Advanced engineering mathematics from Kreyzig?

[rprosperi]

(10-01-2022 04:21 PM)johanw Wrote:  Have you ever felt the paperback version of Advanced engineering mathematics from Kreyzig?

I would only own this in hardcover (which I do). Sacrilege to publish this in paperback...

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(10-01-2022 03:44 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  ...what are you going to read when (1) the electricity goes out

I usually charge my iPad from a solar panel.

(10-01-2022 03:44 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  (2) you are in places where there is no Wifi connection,

My iPad has many more books already in it's memory than I will be able to read in a couple of years.

(10-01-2022 03:44 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  (3) you are tired at look at your phone or computer screen?

For my eyes, reading a text on an internally illuminated screen is much less tiresome than reading stuff printed on paper. A tablet has about the same screen size as a book so for me it is just perfect. The phone display is much too small for my reading and on a computer screen I find the lines too long to be read comfortably.

Regards
Max

[Eddie W. Shore]

(10-01-2022 04:45 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  For my eyes, reading a text on an internally illuminated screen is much less tiresome than reading stuff printed on paper. A tablet has about the same screen size as a book so for me it is just perfect. The phone display is much too small for my reading and on a computer screen I find the lines too long to be read comfortably.

Regards
Max

Point taken. Reading bigger screens is preferable to the smart phone.

[Eddie W. Shore]

(10-01-2022 04:21 PM)johanw Wrote:  That can still be very heavy. I wished that during my college years current tablet technology existed, and I didn't have to carry 1000+ page paperbacks the whole day. Have you ever felt the paperback version of Advanced engineering mathematics from Kreyzig?

I wasn't thinking about carrying the entire library of paperbacks at once. I must confess I find myself printing articles and excerpts of calculator materials to read them when I'm out and about, like having coffee, waiting for a meal at a restaurant, or during my lunch break.

I don't own copy of Kreyzig's book. Is it recommended?

[rprosperi]

(10-01-2022 09:45 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  I don't own copy of Kreyzig's book. Is it recommended?

Yup, for sure.

Best book on Adv. Engineering Math you can find for only $7.99 (shipping included). It's probably also the best at much higher prices too.

This is the 8th Ed. from 1998; there may be newer editions available, but probably not much different, and likely only in softcover.

[Eddie W. Shore]

(10-01-2022 09:58 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(10-01-2022 09:45 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  I don't own copy of Kreyzig's book. Is it recommended?

Yup, for sure.

Best book on Adv. Engineering Math you can find for only $7.99 (shipping included). It's probably also the best at much higher prices too.

This is the 8th Ed. from 1998; there may be newer editions available, but probably not much different, and likely only in softcover.

Purchased.

[rprosperi]

(10-01-2022 11:08 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  

(10-01-2022 09:58 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Yup, for sure.

Best book on Adv. Engineering Math you can find for only $7.99 (shipping included). It's probably also the best at much higher prices too.

This is the 8th Ed. from 1998; there may be newer editions available, but probably not much different, and likely only in softcover.

Purchased.

Great. Please let me (and other readers) know what you think once you receive and peruse it.