The newest
way to read books, eReaders, such as the Kindle and the iPad among others, has
been taking the nation by storm. Nobody
thought that the new technology would take off at such a high rate with
consumers. I do not own one myself, but I
can definitely see why people own them or want to own them, there are many pros
to this new technology, but there are also cons.
For most
the pros are obvious. The eReaders allow
book lovers to have all of their favorite books present digitally in a
tablet. Instead of lugging your books
around everywhere, you only need this tablet, which is small and ideal for
traveling. The introduction of this new
technology has caused book prices to drop, and as a result people are reading
more now than ever, and it’s hard to argue that reading more is anything else
other than a good thing. Also, having
books available digitally is good for the environment because we don’t need to
cut down as many trees in order to produce books. For authors this new technology can be a good
thing because people can access their work for lower prices and it makes
self-publishing easier which allows for them to be more creative with their
writings and take more chances. It is
good for smaller independent publishing companies because they can adapt to
this new technology much faster than larger publishing companies.
There are
also cons associated with these eReaders as well. Authors that rely on visuals in their books
are at the mercy of the eReaders technological limitations, many eBook readers
have complained that he picture on the eReader tablets are not good and can be
confusing. Also publishing companies
have hurries up the production process of these eBooks, leading to more
proofreading errors. A major question that these eReaders are raising is whether
they will do away with printed books for good.
The number of book stores has decreased from 20,000 twenty years ago to
2,000 as of two years ago. This phenomenon
is in part due to large corporations like Barnes & Noble’s putting smaller
book stores out of business, but eReaders have also had an effect. But how will it affect libraries if printed
books go out of style and everyone turns to eReaders to read their favorite
books? Publishers have already set
limits on the number of digital books that can be loaned by libraries; many of
them have set the limit at 26.
Perhaps
the biggest issue I see with this new technology is how it will effect
education. Education, which in the most
part is done through reading books, is all about the access to knowledge and is
considered a public good, so everyone should have an equal right in accessing
books. The problem is that if eReaders
lead to the decline of printed books, then libraries decline and with it the
equal right of everyone to accessing books and thus knowledge. Only the people who can afford eReaders will
have access to most of the books being published, and the poor will be stuck to
find another access to knowledge, or else another way to access the knowledge will
need to be provided to them.
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