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“You may still buy books. But with Project Gutenberg putting thousands of books online, and with the continuing evolution of eBooks, will you care as much about owning them? Certainly, I notice fewer bookshelf-lined walls in homes and offices.” – Columnist Paul Andrews in the Seattle Times.

The TeleRead take: I think Andrews is wrong here. I’d love it if Project Gutenberg and similar activities were the main reason why fewer home had libraries, but the real explanation is that people don’t care about books of any kind as much as they used to. The DRM policies of the commercial side of e-bookdom, along with the format wars, have not helped. But mainly people don’t give a squat about books in any flavor, p- or e-, and would rather play video games or watch TV or movies. What was once a used bookstore near me is now a vacuum cleaner store. In general, book sales are not what they should be, and the increasing prices haven’t helped.

Making books count again

Needless to say, a focused effort in the schools and libraries such as TeleRead could help immensely by accustoming the young to books for both enlightenment and recreation. Depends on the ‘tude of the teachers. Often they’re doing a great job of getting students–especially boys–to hate books. The choice of the right titles isn’t there. Not enough Jules Verne to agument, say, Pride and Prejudice.

Much needs to be done among K-12 folks. When I was calling Power People about Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act recently, a lobbyist with a major education group asked me, “Who wants to read old books?” That’s how big a constituency public domain books enjoy; in fact, she didn’t even know about the Bono Act. Oh, well. I auppose that Andrews was confusing The Big Picture with little trends among his acquaintances within the journalistic and techie elites.

Detail: The Andrews column was mainly on ownership of digital items. Thanks to the DRM Mafia and the Tower of eBabel, you can’t truly own an e-book for keeps. To this day I have yet to buy my first DRM-protected e-book unless you include a dictionary that I use with Mobipocket. I have obtained DRMed books via promos, and a friend gave me a gift certificate. First-hand, I’ve witnessed with a hassle DRM can be.

Update, July 1, 2004: Amazon, of course, is also a reason why the vacuum cleaner store replaced the used bookshop near me. But consider this. Accurately or not–I don’t know–a recent CNBC report said people are paying $2.8 billion annually for books ordered off the Net. If the e-book biz is so healthy with DRM and the Tower of eBabel, why are sales of digitized books at a mere $20-$30 million globally–just a speck of the several billion? It can’t all have to do with the quality or lack of quality of the display devices.

 
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