My Book Center

At least two well-known spellings ebook and e-book and countless other versions (eBook, Ebook) exist but the term ebook now is often used when referring to the methodology of reading just about any mid-to-long-length electronic document that is viewable on a screen, including research papers, short stories and even magazines.

For the purposes of this guide we’re going to talk about ebooks in their pure version: the electronic equivalent of any book or novel formatted for on-screen reading.
Why aren’t ebooks more Popular? Tactile loss And the eBabel Problem

Why aren’t ebooks more popular? The arguments seem to fall into three categories:

1.  Tactile loss : I like the feel and smell of paper / I can’t read on a screen
2.  Lending loss : I want to lend my books to who I want
3.  Library loss : I want a library that will last forever

While the first two are considerable arguments, the tactile loss argument is probably the most obvious and passionate argument longtime readers have, but the least serious technologically. I also feel that it’s getting outweighed by the convenience factor and the fact that we are reading more and more material everyday on a screen.

•  Tactile loss : I like the feel and smell of paper / I can’t read on a screen
•  Lending loss : I want to lend my books to who I want
•  Library loss : I want a library that will last forever

We all remember the discussions when mp3s started becoming popular and people insisted “they’ll want the album notes – they’ll want the physical CD.” Then Apple came along and introduced the iTunes Store and multiple copycats followed so buying electronic music was even easier and became mass-market through support of major record labels.

The one big difference between the music and ebook markets is there is no “mp3″ of ebooks – there is no universal ebook file format, what is often referred to as the “eBabel” problem, much like the Tower of Babel. So unlike when you bought .m4p files from Apple (their proprietary format), you could also load in mp3 files from other sources and create mp3s from your own CDs. Devices just had to read .mp3 and perhaps an additional proprietary format. With ebooks we’re still playing a format-device game and there will be no way to load in electronic versions of paper books you already own.

Lending loss is a problem that I feel less as I didn’t and don’t often exchange books with friends. In fact, I often re-read books I like so I appreciate keeping them in my library. But for other people, the fact that they can’t lend paper books to other friends, re-sell or even buy used books is a disadvantage. In some cases ebooks can be authorized for more than one device, so perhaps you and your best friend can still share books, but for now ebook sellers are determined to keep you from sharing your ebooks.