Comments on: Books! Books! Books!

By: Tuning in to Google Music Search | The Noisy Channel

Tuning in to Google Music Search | The Noisy Channel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:10:01 +0000

[...] all of the activity around e-books last week, you might think that the online world wasn’t paying attention to the media [...]

By: Tuning in to Google Music Search | The Noisy Channel

Tuning in to Google Music Search | The Noisy Channel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:10:01 +0000

[...] all of the activity around e-books last week, you might think that the online world wasn’t paying attention to the media [...]

By: Chris Warren

Chris Warren — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:05:13 +0000

The question of historical record is an important one and, I believe, is the root of the reason that, at least for the moment, electronic books will not replace printed books. Western world culture moves in cycles and while facilities like e-book readers will gain in poularity for their convenience, I believe we are now entering a swing from transiency back to a need for permanence. Printed books will remain a cornerstone of our need to record history. So, let’s celebrate the development of our higher technology without fear for our more traditional formats – they will exist side by side for many moons yet.

Chris Warren
Author and Freelance Writer
Randolph’s Challenge Book One – The Pendulum Swings

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:44:11 +0000

Archiving is certainly an interesting challenge, as is curation. Still, I suspect that old ways won’t keep up with the accelerated rate of publication. Indeed, it’s a lot harder today to decide what is worth archiving!

And I share your taste in open architectures–indeed, the lack thereof has been a factor in my not having either an iPhone or a Kindle. But clearly a lot of other people are less finicky.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:36:15 +0000

I love e-books, they give me the ability to easily take my research PDFs “offline” and into a form that is actually very usable.

When they add a persistent http interface so you can lookup similar data I can see synergies between e-books and projects like mine but that is still a little far off.

My one big worry about e-books and e-media as a whole is lifetime survivability. Paper books going back to the days of Gutenburg (and before – well papyri) can still be read; will archiving digital media fair as well? I hope so!