nocureforcuriosity:

Was linked to this lj post through Neil Gaiman’s twitter. It’s a good read.

How many of these people do you think have access to an ebook reader?

I grew up so far below the poverty line that you couldn’t see it from my window, no matter how clear the day was. My bedroom was an ocean of books. Almost all of them were acquired second-hand, through used bookstores, garage sales, flea markets, and library booksales, which I viewed as being just this side of Heaven itself. There are still used book dealers in the Bay Area who remember me patiently paying off a tattered paperback a nickel at a time, because that was what I could afford. If books had required having access to a piece of technology—even a “cheap” piece of technology—I would never have been able to get them. That up-front cost would have put them out of my reach forever.

Some people have proposed a free reader program aimed at low-income families, to try to get the technology out there. Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the secondary costs. Can you guarantee reliable internet? Can you find a way to let people afford what will always be, essentially, brand new books, rather that second- or even third-hand books, reduced in price after being worn to the point of nearly falling apart? And can you find a way to completely destroy—I mean, destroy—the resale market for those devices?

theuncoordinatedporpoise:

A brief overview of why bound books prevailed over scrolls, and why using an e-reader may make it more difficult to appreciate some works.

But so far the great e-book debate has barely touched on the most important feature that the codex introduced: the nonlinear reading that so impressed St. Augustine. If the fable of the scroll and codex has a moral, this is it. We usually associate digital technology with nonlinearity, the forking paths that Web surfers beat through the Internet’s underbrush as they click from link to link. But e-books and nonlinearity don’t turn out to be very compatible. Trying to jump from place to place in a long document like a novel is painfully awkward on an e-reader, like trying to play the piano with numb fingers. You either creep through the book incrementally, page by page, or leap wildly from point to point and search term to search term. It’s no wonder that the rise of e-reading has revived two words for classical-era reading technologies: scroll and tablet. That’s the kind of reading you do in an e-book.

(via thepinakes)

thelifeguardlibrarian:

24 New Releases to Look Forward to this Fall

carolynkellogg:

The LA Public Library’s 1928 bookmobile for the sick. Kind of like a book wheelbarrow that tilts.

Photo By Diane Asseo Griliches from her book “Library: The Drama Within”.

This reminds me of pics of my mom at that age.

→チーズさきいか

bookstack:

More Whimsical Book Paintings by Mike Stilkey (7 pieces) - My Modern Metropolis

-marcela:

Illustration by Yoko Tanji.

(via chelseaatsea-deactivated2011102)