Print's NOT dead

This is an interesting argument, and one that I admit, with some embarrassment, I had not considered before:

eBooks are great, if you can afford one.

There are still an awful lot of people who can't, though. However, most people, if they want one, can get a library card. (Provided they live where there are libraries.)

I know there's been talk of subsidizing or giving e-readers to people who can't afford them, but...I don't know, that doesn't sound like a good solution to me. As the writer of the original post (who apparently did grow up poor noted): some of those will be re-sold for the money, however little, they could bring (which might solve the problem of "how will my family eat for a couple days" but it doesn't solve the book problem, and it certainly is a roundabout way of getting grocery money into people's hands. And having heard apocryphal stories of donated winter coats for children being sold by their parents to support whatever habit the parents have...)

And as the writer notes: "When I was a kid with nothing, any nice thing I had the audacity to have would be quickly stolen, either by people just as poor as I was, or by richer kids who wanted me to know that I wasn't allowed to put on airs like that." (I vaguely remember the richer kids doing stuff like that to the poorer kids when I was in school. Though, as I remember, it was more a case of vandalizing or otherwise spoiling the nice thing. Just one of many injustices that seemed to exist in the public-school world in those days. And that's why anyone who makes the assumption that kids are "angels in a state of grace" gets an irritated stare from me...)

(And then what about content? And what about computer access to download that content?) I don't know; I think in the long run working to keep libraries alive, with print books in them, is a better solution. (And yes, I know - that takes money. I know some towns have pretty active "Friends" programs that do a lot of fund-raising and stuff for libraries. And I've donated to libraries - well, mainly in the form of books for their collections, but still.)

I don't want to see print books go away. This is just another reason why. (I wonder if RIF is still active, if the bookmobiles still go out? I know that was a big push in the 1970s, when I was a kid, to get books into the hands of kids who might not otherwise have them. And even for those of us from book-rich households, Scholastic or some other publisher would hold annual book fairs at school...I loved the annual book fair. And we also had the opportunity to order books through, again, I think it was Scholastic - the little narrow newsprint order forms, little fliers describing the books. I know I got some of the Clifford books that way when I was a little kid. Do schools still do that?)

The other thing about print books: you can usually drop a print book and it won't break. It doesn't become "outmoded" in a couple years when a new operating system comes on-line (That's one of my biggest technological frustrations: that you often can't just buy something and use it 'til it wears out; it gets superseded by something else). You can read a print book even if you are without electricity access for a long time. (I know, I know, some e-readers boast 30 hours of battery life....but eventually you have to charge them).

I do think sometimes in a push for a new, shiny, fancy technology people don't think of that kind of thing. It's like the people who say the post office is "outmoded" - they forget that there are still people who don't use computers (I know more than a few) and who prefer to send correspondence via paper and pen.