I've moved more than three times in my life and I heart physical books. Packing books is the easiest part of packing.
Your fusty generation will soon disappear from the earth.
If you move more than six times you have to repurchase all of your books, so be careful.
My generation isn't fusty, ogged, at least not with my current diet.
Yeah, 10,000 books sounds good, but which 10,000 books? They only mention 2 by name.
Not the 10,000 you want, I can almost guarantee.
Not the 10,000 you want, I can almost guarantee.
Unless, of course, you're the sort of person who reads stuff like Freakonomics and The Devil Wears Prada. But in that case, you probably don't need 10,000 books because you'd be just as happy reading Us Weekly.
I didn't mean that I'd get this reader in a second. The lack of search in the reader makes me think that they don't actually intend or expect to sell any of these.
Teo's right. I'm all into books on dvd now, b/c of the cross-country drive, and damn. I actually ended up buying two books I already own as books, but haven't read yet, and The Bell Jar, just b/c everything else was either by Danielle Steele or Michael Crichton.
Also, books *are* easy to pack. And if you have a grownup job, which I know you do, Ogged, your next employer should pay moving expenses.
The fact that everyone else who's commented in this thread is in California is probably a sign that I should go to bed.
Darkened car! DaaAAAHrkened cararar!
Bet you're wondering what that was all about, aren't you? Well, you'll just have to wait ... until friday!
That's called a "teaser", by the way.
For $20, I'll tell anyone Ben's secret.
I like the idea of e-books, though their problems (technical & otherwise) seem to be more than just superficial. It's going to be a long wait, it seems.
The only hesitation I have is that I really don't want to be forced into choosing between an e-book and a physical copy of the same title; for the most part, I want both. A possible solution is to bundle a CD (or an access code for an iTunes-like store) with paper copies so that you have access to both. There's no marginal cost to speak of, and it would solve any problems of divided format loyalties.
But you can't move more than three times in your life and not develop a special loathing for physical books
Word. After approximately, oh, 13 moves in the last 13 years, and with another move imminent, I am seriously thinking of seriously paring down my collection.
There is an astonishing amount of material out there. Yesterday I downloaded about a gig from Douglas Kellner's website, including his early books complete on Karl Korsch and Baudrillard. Many essays and papers. I still want his book on Marcuse, but the download failed. 105 mb, I hate pdf. Free and legal, many professors are putting their work online.
Gutenberg is far from the only source.
And for roughly $100 a year, there is questia. Just searched for john rawls and came up with 2770 books. I suppose if you are doing professional research you need very specific books, but there is plenty of knowledge available.
I rarely ever touch paper anymore.
But you can't move more than three times in your life and not develop a special loathing for physical books.
"You" in the sense of who?
[Reference to George W. Bush redacted.]
I rarely ever touch paper anymore.
[Invidious comprison redacted]
The medical bookstore I worked for made a move to ebooks around 7-10 years ago. Medical books often need a lot of visuals, and e-books can really improve the visual effects.
It was a big flop. In the end CDs were well less than 1% of the stock. A lot of print medical books include CD supplements now, though.
Unfortunately, computer screens still don't approach paper for readability or comfort. Paper is *so* much easier on your eyes. They, screens, aren't as portable, you can't just throw in a bag when you leave the house, etc.
I have bought commercial PDFs before -- sheet music, in particular -- but I always end up printing them out anyway.
You can't lean back in a comfy chair. Can't read in the tub. And a few one-lb books are easier to carry around than a computer.
I rarely ever touch paper anymore.
McManus is all about the bidet.
Don't forget the best thing about paper books: they rarely ever become unreadable because the technology changes. Sure every thousand years or so a script will be forgotten, but compare that to all of the forms of electronic data you have around the house that you can't read because they don't make 8" floppy players or whatever.
Darkened car! DaaAAAHrkened cararar!
Such excitement. Let me guess, first night on the job?
I don't think I'd want to read a book on it, but if that reader can hold all of the little journal articles that I'd have to print from jstor, it would be worth it.
If you haven't seen the sony reader in person, I urge you to track one down, just to see the screen. It's really nothing like a computer screen (which is, unfortunately, why there's no search yet). I know a bunch of the people at E Ink (and was roomates with two of the founders for a while), so it's nice to see their work finally making it into a decent product.
Ogged is about half right. I'd kill for a good e-book reader. I had one of the older ones, and there were things about it that I really liked. But paper is still a lot better, for many, many reasons. I think handwriting recognition would make a difference. And the quality of the screen is a big deal. And, of course, available books.
I think handwriting recognition would make a difference
How? You mean so you could easily annotate the e-book?
Yeah. Searchable notes are pretty cool. But entering the notes is a pain in the ass.
I tried reading some free books on my pda a while back, so I'm open to it, but the selection was a real deal killer. I tended to read mostly news stories on the bus, but I didn't synch regularly enough and finally stopped carrying a pda.
all of the forms of electronic data you have around the house that you can't read
I don't think I have any such data. There's always a transition period, when there are tools to convert from the older to the newer format. Personal responsibility, people! I even have some mix tapes from my youth as digital files (admittedly, this can be a bit of a pain).
I even have some mix tapes from my youth as digital files
No matter how hard you try, you really can't get your youth back, ogged.
But you can refuse to let it go, can't you?
You can certainly refuse to acknowledge that it went.
I even have some mix tapes from my youth as digital files
You're so strange, Ogged. This reads to me like having your elementary-school valentines etched in nanobytes on your red blood cells.
It's not that strange. There were a few things that I didn't think I could easily find again, so I hooked up the cassette player line out to a computer and recorded them. Obviously, that's a bit extreme, but I just wanted to make the point that format changes don't necessarily mean that old stuff becomes inaccessible.
But you can't move more than three times in your life and not develop a special loathing for physical books.
I even have some mix tapes from my youth as digital files (admittedly, this can be a bit of a pain).
More than a bit. I started to transfer all my vinyl to mp3 format, but just gave up. Fortunately, I still own a record player.
(I rarely take out the records, though, because attracting attention to them makes it more likely that the kids will get their grubby little paws on them.)
Well, all I can say is that it takes all kinds, including certain nameless barbarians.
I've moved my stuff, almost all books, 7 times in the last 24 years, and my only regret is that I sold about $200 worth of books in 1984 (new cost probably $1000+). I could easily list 20 of them -- I miss them even today. From time to time I even regret not buying books which I saw only once. I can think of four of those off the top of my head.
For my most recent cross-country move I spent $1000 shipping books. I have several boxes of books I know I won'y live long enough to read, and that pisses me off, but I'm keeping the books.
Tip: when moving, large shopping bags are the best way to package books. Boxes full of books get too heavy, and you have to look for boxes, and you end up with all these clunky boxes.
I'm actually thinking of selling some books, not out of hate, but out of love. When the books are just sitting there on the shelf because you are hording them, they aren't actually being books. They are just, like, potential books. They only fully achieve their nature if they are read. Right now, I’m thinking that if I know I’m not going to read a book in the next ten years, I should just sell it or give it to a good home.
In the last two months, I've sold or given away about 400 books. So far, I don't regret losing a single one of them. If I really want to read them again, I'm going to either check them out of the damned library or repurchase them.
The US postal service has some incredibly low book-shipping costs. Unfortunately, the cheapest rate involves giant burlap bags, which isn't very good for books.
I did ship my books USPS. Photocopies don't count as books, though.
I like digital technology and all -- my day job (the one that funds my PhD etc) is heavily involved with high-end digital imaging -- and it's a huge improvement in some areas but I still like using a lot of old stuff. New stuff sometimes results in an improvement in convenience and/or the aesthetic experience of using that stuff, but sometimes it results in a retrograde step on one or other (or both) of those dimensions. The aesthetic experience of using something really matters.
So, I can still play my mix-tapes because I still have a cassette player, ditto vinyl. I write with a fountain pen, wear a mechanical rather than batttery powered watch, my favourite camera is a 30 year old Soviet knock-off of a 70 year old design, my main guitar is a 35 year old Japanese knock-off of a 50 year old design, etc. Some of that is mild Luddism, but a lot of it is because some of those things are just better (in some sense or other).
Books are a mature technology -- they are really really good at doing what they do. It'll take a lot to replace them. I am very lucky in that, as part of my 'day' job, I get to handle a lot of old books -- illuminated manuscripts, 2000 year old papyri, original handwritten author's first drafts [most recently, Jane Austen, Kafka, and John Locke], etc. E-books have a very long way to go before they combine the portability, durability and convenience of paper books.
Have any of you bibliophiles played with LibraryThing yet?
I started a LibraryThing and got very quickly distracted.
Can you export the data from LibraryThing?
very quickly
(Like, after entering 21 books for myself and 16 books for my daughter.)
This is all madness. Books are such wonderful things. They have unmatchable thinginess. What else are you supposed to have?
Ditto 56. Also, I have some comments on the aesthetics of physical books on my blog here. There you can also find a link to my library thing catalogue, where I entered 654 books before being distracted.
Yes! To 56.
Although my wife wishes our flat was less thingie with things.
"From time to time I even regret not buying books which I saw only once"
-sniff-
yeah. it was 1996. The 6-volume Birkbeck Hill edition of Boswell. In a London Bookshop for--sob--half price!
Oh, god, I still can't believe I let it get away. A chance like that--never again.
regret doesn't even begin to describe it.
They only fully achieve their nature if they are read.
Perhaps, but even just sitting on the shelf, they're memory triggers once they have been read. I've got some going back to the late '40s and they'll go when I'm dead, not before.
As for e-book readers, that technology isn't at all ready for prime time. PDAs and cellphones do things not possible before so there are reasons to live with their defects. Until I can toss a reader on a tile counter, splash contact lens saline on it, or use it as coaster for a hot cup of coffee, AND have it still function as a book, I'm passing
Regarding multiple uses of books, I'm wishing I could get more of a hearing for my proposal to print books on flapjacks, which could be eaten once read, thus simultaneously nourishing the consumer's mind and body.
"toss a reader on a tile counter, splash contact lens saline on it, or use it as coaster for a hot cup of coffee,"
wow--you really live up to your name, huh?
Aside from the thingie-ness of books, which I'm fully on board with appreciating, it's going to be a hell of a long time before any e-reader is going to have the same search capacity as a book I know pretty well. The capacity to riffle through the pages, reading half a sentence here and there, is something I would really hate to give up.
Also it's nice to be able to draw cartoon figures on the lower corners of successive pages, which when flipped quickly through, appear to be moving.
The capacity to riffle through the pages, reading half a sentence here and there, is something I would really hate to give up.
Yeah, that's a biggie. I couldn't think how to describe it, though, and you've done it nicely. It's basically impossible to jump around in clumps and with value in the eReaders, and I can't, for the life of me, think of a plausible solution.
63 is very true, but at the same time I admit that the capacity to search for a phrase or passage that I know is in there somewhere but just can't find is something I would really love to have.
Which is why paper + electronic editions isn't a bad idea. Although I predict that if I had them, I would never even open the cds. Or at least I never have, in books of mine that have cd supplements.
I just looked at that "librarything" thing and I don't understand the point. It's just a list of the books you own? To what end?
Brock -- are you unfamiliar with the joy of ownership?
64: My father owns a giant old anthology of plays that was a college textbook of his. He bought it secondhand back when he was in college, and it has the best flip-action swordfight in the corners (actually, it has two in different corners, but only one is really good). I used to flip through it often as a child.
the capacity to search for a phrase or passage that I know is in there somewhere but just can't find
This is what annotation skillz are for.
re: 59
I saw an 18th century edition of Tristram Shandy, in a second hand bookshop in Stirling for about 15 quid. I bought the 1960s single-volume 'complete Lewis Carroll' that was next to it. Fool.
wow--you really live up to your name, huh?
I'm considerably more evil in real life.
However, my point is really that paper books fail gracefully, one can still obtain most of what they have to offer even after lots of wear and even abuse. Electronic gear tends to fail completely when it does fail and everyday life is full of fatal hazards for anything with a screen.
72--
you have my condolences.
And notice how little it would salve your sense of injury for someone to say: "but wait! You can upload Sterne's complete works onto your wristwatch-text-reader! for only 99cents!"
just ain't the same.
(especially if you have to wind your wristwatch-text-reader up at the same time every week).
Fuddy duddies, the lot of you. Please note that your sentimental objections were already considered and dismissed with the orginal post's "etc."
They have unmatchable thinginess.
And shelvability!
A barbarian only responds to force. As Louis IX (St. Louis) explained, argument is a waste of time. Cold steel to the guts is what works with barbarians.
I sometimes use online e-books precisely for their search function. If you have a key word that's not too common and don't have to load each chapter separately to search, ebooks are the best.
For example, on my site I searched the internet for poems mentioning hollyhocks and found 20 or more in about six languages. Certain authors use certain key metaphors (walls, chains, mirrors, etc.) and you can find every mention electronically.
I don't hate computers and am all for fucking DRM etc. But I'm usually flipping through a book because I can't remember what exactly the writer said, but know that I can find what I'm looking for on the right-hand page, two-thirds of the way through the book, after that one bookmark but before the note I wrote about something else.
Anyone who buys an ebook reader is going to have to buy another one about 20 minutes later. I'm sure that LazerDisc technology was greeted as the best thing to happen to information since the library at Alexandria, but where are those suckers who bought in now? Packing and moving LazerDiscs. Slimmer than physical books, and only good for coasters.
I'm thinking just how much easier it would be to travel carrying all my articles in once place rather than paper in binders. (Had this been out earlier, I am informed it would have been a birthday present.)
E-book technology is great for short articles -- where you don't get fatigued from looking at it for a long time and where the ability to annotate and search is useful.
For other books, no. Not yet.
I'd be a lot more down with LibraryThing if it could scan barcodes off my MacBook's camera like Delicious Library does.
We were taught in library school that the sorriness of e-book screens' technology was the reason librarians' jobs would not be in danger any time soon.
81 -- I think E-book technology would be good for The Holy Bible. I at least read at most a couple of pages at a time, and searching is totally key.
"at least" s/b "for one", for added coherence.
In my bookstore, one company marketed a little bocket library thingie for ~$300 or so which would have been wonderfully useful, except that it has a fatal bug. It was a nightnmare for use, because the company's customer service was as bad as their product.
Praise you, Magpie. I've been wanting to use one of those library database programs and didn't realize that the input device is right in front of me.
(Don't think I'm not aware that that phrase is low-hanging fruit, you juveniles. Have at it if you must.)
The more I type, the worse I get. Seriously. I never used to do these things.
"a little pocket library thingie for ~$300 or so which would have been wonderfully useful, except that it had a fatal bug. It was a nightmare for us....
I think E-book technology would be good for The Holy Bible.
The Unbound Bible site, with searchable side-by-side English translations, is a great supplement to my home bible. There is NO way I'm EVER chucking my bible for an e-book, though, since I've been writing in the margins of my copy since I was eight years old.
"I never used to do these things."
It's because you're spending all your time pumping iron to get that ripped look instead of practicing basic typing skills.
What's the use of all those bench-presses if you're reduced to hunt & pecs?
88 -- Thot you Mormons had a different book.
Ooh, thanks for that link! That's beyond awesome.
The conception of Issachar was my favorite.
Though the children eaten by the bear is my new favorite.
Hi, AWB!
I've got one of those, too, Clownae. But between you, me, and the Whole Wide World, the Book of Mormon sucks. The Bible published by Deseret Industries is the KJT, and it offers a pretty kick-ass concordance in the back. Its cross-referenced notes often refer to the Mormon books, and the topics selected for cross-referencing is an excellent example of bias in indexing, but it's still a good enough tool that I've had fellow grad students borrow it for textual criticism projects.
88: That's great. Next time I move, I won't have to pack my Wolof translation of the Bible.
No, a decent computer search feature beats the crap out of riffling through pages. But even if and when computer technology allows us to do the Harry Potteresque thing of having a single physical book on which the text of anything ever written can appear, there is still going to be a fundamental problem (which isn't just sentiment) of the thing's dependence on a user's ability to figure out the technical code to make it do that. Which is a *lot* less visible and figure-out-able than words on a page. Ogged's touching faith that one will always be able to solve the problems of retaining old media by simply transferring them to newer formats is nice and all, but we're physical beings, and a book is a physical artefact in a way that a fabulous intersection of code and hardware just isn't.
Wow, JM, that looks like the best bible portal yet. I've bookmarked a bunch of them, but I've never found any satisfying.
I'm with Emerson - If I can't take it into the tub, forget it. Besides, e-books don't have that lovely paper & ink smell. Not to mention the handy prop-up-the-furniture ability. Or the squash-a-bug facility. And they don't work well as cookbooks, what with computers having no burners. Nor are e-books useful to hurl at burglars or ex-husbands. Or to insulate one's house in rural New England.
And after the Apocalypse, when there is no electricity and the internets' tubes are empty, we who have Real Books will still be able to read. And we will sneer at the rest of you.
After the apocalypse, we'll sit down on the steps of a library in ruins, e-book reader in hand, loaded with thousands and thousands of texts, slip and drop it, break the screen, and weep for what we have lost. Then we'll watch episodes of the Twilight Zone on a still working video iPod.
One of the many reasons why I love Rah is that he has so very many books. There are books in every room of our house. There are bookshelves in our hallways. I love technology enough to make it my profession but nothing can replace paper.
That said, if they ever come up with, say, a flexible screen that looks like paper and feels like paper and can use it to make "books" that feel like books and are manipulated like books but the text can be wiped and replaced with the contents of a different book by syncing it wirelessly? Fuck yes I'll buy one of those.
E-books frighten me. Without books spilling out every window of my house, how will my neighbors know I'm smart?
And how will I go to other people's houses and make judgments about them based on their bookshelves?
One of the reasons I feel so comfortable getting rid of many of my books in my upcoming move is that I know I'll be moving into a house already filled with many books. Were I moving in with someone like The Gay Indian Roommate or RoommateBeforeLast, I wouldn't have been able to do it.
I know I'll be moving into a house already filled with many books.
That is the best feeling -- suddenly having access to a houseful of books accumulated by someone else with not entirely alien tastes to your own? If there's anything sad about thinking that I'm never going to move in with anyone else ever again, it's never again having that 'new person's library' feeling.
I'm with Ogged. I love my books, but my house is too damn small to fill the whole thing up with bookshelves. Give me an e-book that's pleasant to read and easy to use and I'm a happy man.
105 - I'm feeling like a total freeloader. They have all kinds of cool books and, well, what are the chances they'll want to read The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs?
Grumble, grumble. I thought we already had the cursive thread, or maybe I have forgotten what blog I am on. And wasn't there a thread here about electronic keyboards? I speak as someone who lives with 5000+ books.
Digitize them, then burn em all. Only when they are gone, when the market belongs only to nostalgic collectors, will the kid in Paraguay have the same opportunities as the Professor in Boston.
107: But it's such a delightful, effortless way to show off. Watching someone else gloating over access to your bookshelves feels great.
I vistied a guy with a nice library, and I noticed that the books in his most excellent library showed no signs of wear. He was promoting himself for something or another, and I failed to support him.
Perhaps he was just a person who was very gentle with books, but I suspected him of not having read them.
107: if you call it The Wizard Book, more people will want to read it.
And how will I go to other people's houses and make judgments about them based on their bookshelves?
You'll have to switch to the art on their walls.
What do you think the R-factor is on a wall of bookshelves? It has to be pretty high, right?
When I was house-shopping years ago, I went into a lovely house, a great house, with cathedral ceilings and a pool and a bathtub the size of Wisconsin and a kitchen I could actually cook in. But it made me uncomfortable. There was something wrong, some impending dread. Then I realised that there was nothing to read in the place except an issue of People magazine. And, perhaps, the toothpaste tube. It had been so long since I'd been into a dwelling place that wasn't overflowing with books that it was, well, unnatural.
As someone who has moved *lots* of times, I'd rather give up the furniture than the books. But then, I got used to help-pack-up-Daddy's -office as a child, when we moved every couple of years as my father climbed the academic ladder. The movers would never believe that someone owned two tons of books.
114: Dunno the R factor, but they kept the living room warm [wall-to-ceiling built in bookcases on three walls] in rural northwestern CT, where the winds blew cold in winter.
No, we can't do art on the walls, because mine is all reproductions and posters of shit like Klee and Rembrandt. Hopelessly middle-class.
I noticed that the books in his most excellent library showed no signs of wear.
Were the pages still uncut?
70/71/73- wait, that was a serious question. I honestly don't know what sort of skill I'm lacking that would allow me pinpoint searches (or reasonable approximations thereto) in paper books. And I don't know what this has to do with "annotation skills" (or "skillz"), unless I don't really understand the full set of skills that phrase denotes. Someone enlighten me, please.
What I meant by 'search capacity' in a paper book is that if if I've read the book before, I tend to have a fairly good sense of where the bit I'm looking for is, physically, and that flipping through the pages and reading a bit here and there to remind myself of where I am tends to be faster and more accurate than searching by phrase for an inexactly remembered passage.
Annotation skillz are the skills necessary to write something in the margin next to something you're going to want to remember, so that you see the marginal note as you flip through.
Is that really all JM meant? Bah. I hardly ever know in advance what it is that I'm later going to want to remember.
And yeah, I understand and use your method. I just imgaine there would be quite a few advantages to a targeted search, for me at least.
If you watch a lot of HGTV — Home and Gardening Television, a cable channel — as I do, you may be struck by how seldom you see bookshelves with any but a small number of books. Sometimes this is made explicit, when crowded bookshelves, or for that matter video or music collections, are described as "clutter." Very, very seldom does a design incorporate a full bookshelf, let alone in virtually every room of the house, as would be necessary in mine.
very seldom does a design incorporate a full bookshelf
Hey! Now that I've got my Flicker account all set up, why don't I post a link to my first-ever woodworking project (completed in September 2000)? It is appropriate to this thread.
When I'm reading a largish important book, Brock, I tend to 1) write little summary phrases at the top margin every five-ten pages, 2) underline or bracket neat passages, 3) circle the page numbers of really important-seeming pages, 4) keep a notecard/bookmark filled with the stuff that I was thinking about as I read. It's not foolproof, but I do tend to be able to find quotes in books I've read thoroughly.
124: JM, don't your habits tend to make the librarians cross when you return the book? They certainly make me cross when I check it out after you. Please stop!
Also, the screens on e-books really are completely different from computer screens, and use a completely different technology; you don't get the same kind of eyestrain at all from them. In fact it's probably about the same as reading from paper. You have to see it to believe it, but it's really nifty.
That said, I'm all about real books and their lovely lovely thinginess. I'd be very happy though to have an e-book to read things like blogs, articles, and anything else I primarily read now on eyepain-inducing computer screens.
Is the thing keeping e-book screens from being used as computer screens the long refresh interval? and/or the lack of colors?
126: Probably. I think they work by moving little tiny bits of black or white plastic or something into place, rather than making diodes glow or however computer monitors work. So adding color is probably not an option, though I'm not sure.
Here's what Sony's site says:
What is e Ink® Technology?
The Sony® Reader’s display uses e Ink® - a significant improvement over CRT and LCD technology. Instead of rows of glowing cells, e Ink® microcapsules actually appear as either black or white depending on a positive or negative charge determined by the content. The result is a reading experience that’s similar to paper - high contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at a nearly 180-degree angle, and requiring no power to maintain the image.
In other words, a high-tech Etch-A-Sketch? That's awesome.
Yeah, does not sound like color is really an option -- I could totally live with a greyscale monitor but if the refresh latency is too long that would be a pretty significant impediment. But hey, new technology always gets faster. Maybe e-book screens are not too far down the road. (Actually probably not. I think greyscale would make nobody be interested in financing such a venture.)
Well, the microcapsules sound like they flip from the black side to the white side depending on the charge. Maybe some genius could figure out a way to stack capsule and then flip them between a primary color or colorless to produce different hues?
"capsule" s/b "capsules"
And yeah, it's kind of like an etch-a-sketch, except that the white parts are really white, like paper, not just black parts on a neutral screen, like an etch-a-sketch. It really does look very good and non-computery like.