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Originally Posted by LadyBrooke
Unless they plan on making the electronic readers cheaper they're not going to be able to get rid of paper bound books. I currently live in a relatively poor area of the country and while I am fortunate enough to be able to buy books, I know many people who are solely dependent on the public and school libraries for books. There is simply no way that the people in this area would be able to buy a Kindle or iPad. What are the publishers going to do, subsidize electronic readers for everybody.
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Not wanting to come across as some kind of loony socialist, but I suspect that publishers don't think very much about those too poor to be able to afford an e-reader (let alone an ipad). They're producing the devices for those with the funds to buy them - they aren't in the business of social care.
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It looks like I've found another soapbox.  Anyways if anybody is interested in a good book about the beginnings of the OED there's one called The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester. The U.S. title is The Professor and the Madman.
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There's a book specificall about Tolkien's time on the OED - Ring of Words
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/...f_words_pb.php
I can see the argument that language changes so fast now, that life generally is so fast, that on line access is preferable - & I can't really put the other side of the case because I tend to go on-line for that kind of stuff, but I just like the idea of having the physical books around somewhere.
E-books are far more desired by publishers than readers, I think - they cost nothing to produce(no raw materials costs, no manufacturing costs, no transport cost, no storage costs - & can be sold for close on the price of the physical book. And that's after you've paid out a small fortune for your e-reader....
The way things seem to be going is a combination of e-texts & print on demand (cf
http://www.tolkien.co.uk/PrintonDema...sdt=1&sort=son ) which will all mean that fairly soon we would start to see an end to the book except as luxury item, or as sellable item - the e-books are mostly restricted to use on one or two devices so can't be sold on or lent.
Do we need physical books though? Or if we do, will our kids & grandkids? For myself, I can see how reference books can be replaced by on-line access, but not novels - Lord of the Rings on an ipad just seems wrong, a denial of the essential nature & message of the work itself - which at its heart is the story of a physical book of history & its transmission down the ages.