I was interviewed for an article for Campus Technology on the impact of the Amazon Kindle on college textbooks. The End of Textbooks? explores the pro’s and con’s of using eReader’s to replace the traditional printed college textbook.
This is a huge paradigm shift for most people, much greater than when the music industry went digital. The problem is that people think of a laptop computer when they think about eReaders and all the inherent problems with reading from a laptop. TheKindle and other eReaders solve most of those problems. Reading from a Kindle is very similar to reading from paper with excellent resolution and no backlight that causes eyestrain.
So what’s your take on the Kindle? Will it ever replace college textbooks?
Related Resources:
- Books Aren’t Dead – They’re Just Going Digital – (Newsweek Cover Story from November 2007)
- The Coming Death of Paper as an Information Storage Medium
- Steve Jobs Was Only Half-Right: People Do Read – Even Kids – They Just Do It Online
- Move Over Kindle: Here Comes the Chinese E-Book
I would like to think it would succeed but I have my doubts. People who are used to books (like myself)like more than just the words. The kindle doesn’t have the intimate feel of a book, Younger people who read are getting their info from magazines and the Web, as pointed out in “Steve Jobs was only half right. . .”
It’s a noble and heartfelt experiment, though.
Oh, and do you really believe students are reading their textbooks?
When I read a hard copy of a book I can read for hours. Reading text on the computer is very fatiguing and I get bloodshot eyes. I would not like to see paper books become a thing of the past.
When I have downloaded e-books to paper there is a lot of waisted paper, as the printer only prints one side of the paper and usually has very wide margins on the printed side.
I like to make notes and highlight meaningful points in books, for future reference. This is not possible on-line.
The above being said, I do apprreciate having free access to the incredible amount of information, at my fingertips, via the internet.