COOS BAY, Ore. – Downloading e-books seems to be more of a hassle than it’s worth at local libraries nationwide that are swamped with requests from E-readers that can’t be satisfied.
Frustrated high school and community college students here in the coastal town of Coos Bay who got new E-readers as gifts this past Christmas – Kindles, Nooks and iPads – in hopes of downloading E-books from local libraries are finding that “it’s not as simple” as just checking out a book made of paper. In turn, a Coos Bay student named Albert who, out of sheer frustration over the long wait time to get an E-book from the library, simply put his iPad back in his backpack and checked out a "classic" paperback (made of paper) to read instead. According to a recent report in The Washington Post – under the headline “Publishers restrict flow of E-books to libraries – the newspaper reported how “checking out E-books without having to leave home – just as you would buy a title online: click and boom, there it is – might be the fastest growing segment in the library business these days. But the experience is often far from the on-demand satisfaction people have come to expect from their laptops, tablets and smartphones.”
Get way in back of the line to check-out an E-book
While technology was supposed to make our lives easier – and free people up to do such things as play with their kids outside, or focus on loving the one you’re with – is now viewed as unrealialistic.
For example, tech-gadget fans seem more stressed today than ever at finding both the time and resources to enjoy their new Kindles, Nooks and iPads -- that require a lot more maintenance than simply picking up a paperback and reading it -- say students who expected a lot more from these portable gadgets that are marketed as better than sliced bread.
Also, libraries nationwide are being “swamped” with E-reader requests that can’t be satisfied in the same way as simply checking out a book made from paper.
For instance, The Washington Post offers this example: “Want to take out the new John Grisham? Get in line. Recently, 288 people were ahead of you wanting this new Grisham novel at the Fairfax County Public Library system, waiting for “one of 43 copies.”
In turn, a librarian noted: “You’d be the 268th person waiting for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” with 47 copies.
“And the new Steve Jobs biography? Forget it. The publisher, Simon & Shuster, doesn’t make any of its digital titles available to libraries,” reported The Washington Post; while the irony that the new Steve Jobs biography can’t be downloaded on an iPad at any library in the U.S. or worldwide would probably vex Jobs who wanted more access to information for all people.
E-reader frustration at all levels
According to the recent Washington Post report on the problems with the so-called “E-reader revolution” -- when it comes to download e-books at public and school libraries – is linked to “frustration that’s building on all sides: among borrowers who can’t get what they want when they want it; among librarians trying to stock their virtual shelves and working with limited budgets and little cooperation from some publishers; and among publishers who are fearful of piracy and wading into a digital future that could further destabilize their industry.”
In turn, The Washington Post reported that many “publishers are limiting the number of e-books made available to libraries.”
While public libraries nationwide are struggling to meet the demand of e-books -- now that people have laid out a few hundred bucks, or even upwards of $700 to $800 for a deluxe tablet that has all the bells and whistles -- the common sense method of simply walking into a library and checking out a book made of paper is not lost on “Baby Boomers.”
In fact, the dawn of the E-reader has brought with it a backlash from those who advocate the concept to “simplify” their lives that are already too stressed; while “living in a world of fools, bringing us down,” quipped one Boomer singing the popular Bee Gees song with a stack of books made of paper in her had at a Coos Bay area library.
In turn, this is not a story about how books made of paper are viewed as better than E-readers; it’s just that today’s technology has not yet eclipsed those who still like to put a paperback in their pocket and not worry when sitting on a park bench, or under a tree or at the beach, that they will need batteries or have to squint at a Kindle, Nook or iPad screen to read something outside in daylight.
E-books not priced at being disposable
Nearby Portland is a city with some top-notch book shops that still sell books made of paper is not only one of the best-read cities in America, but also a town that reminds E-book fans that digital print is marketed as disposable, but not priced that way.
A recent Amazon.com survey of its book, magazine and newspapers sales (both in print and Kindle format) states that Portland, Oregon, is No. 19 in its “20 Best Read Cities in America,” reports the Atlantic magazine; while noting that Cambridge, Massachusetts as Number 1 is “a no-brainer” since its home to Harvard and MIT.
The other top best read cities – where E-books and the Internet’s revolution is viewed as “pretty harmless,” because instead of reading things made of paper we now read things online – include: Alexandria, Virginia at No. 2, and Berkeley, California at No. 3, with Ann Arbor, Michigan as the 4th best read city in America.
Thus, the big news that instead of buying books at a store, that some people buy them on-line is not “so revolutionary” as 2012 approaches because “many book lovers think E-books such for a whole host of reasons,” said a customer at the famed “Powell’s City of Books,” that one of the largest independent paper book shops in the nation.
Wired complains about E-books
Tech-fans might be surprised that “Wired” recently featured a story that stated “5 Reasons why E-Books Aren’t There Yet.”
Wired stated that overall “the e-book is fundamentally flawed.”
For instance, Wired reported that “E-books are positioned as disposable, but aren’t priced that way.”
Wired points out that “until e-books truly add new value, the way Hollywood did with DVD extras, it’s just annoying to plunk down $13 for what amounts to a rental. E-books cost virtually nothing to produce, and yet the baseline cover price, set by publishers, is only fractionally below the discount price for the print version of new releases.”
Moreover, E-books are not popular in America’s most read cities, such as Portland, because local paper made book fans say e-books can’t be “shared, donated to the library or homeless shelters” or even re-sold.
“It’s just fun to cruise through Powell’s on a rainy afternoon looking at all the books,” said Julie during a recent Huliq interview. “I think e-books suck for the simply reason I can’t see them, touch them, feel them and even hold them in my hands as I dream about the places they take me.”
You can’t write in the margins of E-books
Another thing that “sucks about E-books,” asserts Julie while browsing at Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland, is E-books have no place to “write my little notes like I do with my real books.”
Also, Wired magazine – which appeals to tech-gadget lovers who can’t wait for the next thing that they can do while in cyberspace – points to the problem of having an “unfinished E-book.”
Wired referenced a former reporter – who now writes for The New York Times as a “tech reporter,” who “wrote excitedly that she had finally finished her first e-book,” but that such “technological tardiness” doesn’t seem possible for someone so plugged in.
In turn, this Times tech reporter stated that “she kept forgetting to pick up any E-book she had started reading,” and it took “the solemn determination of a New Year’s resolution to break the spell.”
E-readers give you a headache
“E-books don’t exist in your peripheral vision,” Wired stated. “They do not taunt you to finish what you started. They do not serve as constant, embarrassing reminders to your poor reading habits. Even 1,001 digital books are out of sight, and thus out of mind.”
For example, the next time you’re in Paris – on the Left Bank – check out the “Poet’s Corner” at Shakespeare and Company book store, you will note books that are arranged on something called “bookshelves” that are not divided by apps.
That’s why Wired and other tech magazines are trying to explain why there’s a problem with those who can simply view books on bookshelves; while tech fans only have apps to on their “tablets” and smartphones to find their long forgotten downloaded E-books.
“Try and imagine Borders dictating the size and shape of our bookshelf, and enforcing a rule that it hold only books you bought from them, and see if that thought offends you even a little bit,” stated Wired’s report on why e-books suck for true fans who like to read “real books.
Books made of paper one of life’s great joys
Local book shop owners here in “book loving Portland,” note that paper books still dominate, but E-books are “quickly gaining ground with Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy now “the top best seller with the local college student crowd that seems to do just about everything on line or on screen,” says Jason who buys and sells vintage editions.
“I don’t really like E-books ‘cause you need a power source, and that doesn’t work for me ‘cause I like to sit under a tree to read,” explains Jason while also noting that the “artificial glow” of Kindles and other E-Book reader gives him a “bad migraine.” “Plus,” he says, “one of the great joys of life -- that I learned from my late mother -- is reading a book; and she meant a book made of paper and not enclosed in a silver box.”
While all three books in Larsson's Millennium Trilogy are still “in the Top 10 bestselling Kindle books of all time,” states Amazon, there’s also recent news from Bloomberg Business Week that E-books will become more of the “norm” by 2015 when prices for Kindles and other E-readers drops. "There will come a day when just about everyone “will be wired into the machine,” adds Jason while sharing his old school roots when it comes to his passion for "real books."
Books made of paper ranked at the top of the good things in life
“If you were to make a list of all the good things in the world, books would be right up near the top. Someone did a great thing when they invented books. One way or another, books have been around for a long time now, too. I don't really know who invented the printed word but you'd have to put it ahead of things like the airplane or jelly donuts,” says CBS News reporter Andy Rooney during one of his final commentaries on his love of books.
Rooney added: “I have a friend, Peter Osnos who publishes books and Peter told me that what they call "E-books" - electronic books - are now selling better than paperback books. I doubt it but that's what Peter said and he's in the business. He makes it sound as if every book will be published electronically soon and be read using some sort of electronic device.”
Still, a lot of people have told both Andy and "Jason the book guy in Eugene." that E-books cost less and one reader can hold up to 3,500 books.
In turn, Jason says, “So what, who the heck can read thousands of books like that. And, I don’t think E-books are less expensive ‘cause I just got a nice first edition of ‘Caverns’ by Ken Kesey and it only cost me a buck.”
Others, who are a bit older, just don’t like E-books.
E-readers suck if you don’t have power
"I'm not interested in having my books on an electronic device. I want them in books. I want my words in books,” says Rooney. “I like having these books I know behind me so, I asked another friend to show me his E-reader. My books have always been important to me. Not just the books I've written, but any book I own. I can't imagine not being able to pick up a book and thumb through it.”
Books made of paper provide a different reading experience "because you can actually touch the words on paper and the book's photos," said one book fan.
Books made of paper are still popular, adds Jason, "simply because that don’t require a special carrying case or plug to read one."
Others agree with Jason who now sells books out of an old van near the University of Oregon in Eugene.
“My customers still want something they can cuddle with in front of a fire, with a cup of Joe and not the endless distractions of reading something on the Internet. This multi-networked world is not made for simple souls who simply want to read a good book and give one during the holidays,” says Eugene rare book expert Emily Hartwig.
Hartwig, who’s plugged into Amazon, eBay and other sources of paper books, notes that “the paper kind are still the best selling during the spring and summer book reading months. Nobody wants their E-Reader to get sand in it. Just take a paperback. Also, I'd say check out any major book store or source and paper made books are still popular and selling very well. And, this has been going on for hundreds of years, or since paper books were first invented. Paper books are cherished and honored still.”
Books made of paper are like an old friend, says fans of the classics
Books in paper format that Hartwig says are still popular include: Mailer, Twain, Dickens, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Zola, Dreiser, Dostoevsky, Tom Wolfe, Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald, Orwell, Steinbeck, Kipling, Saki, Sinclair Lewis, Maugham, and local Eugene writer Ken Kesey.
Books are not read for news, as is a newspaper or the Internet. Instead, paper made books “help us pull back from technology.”
“For me, it helps to reconnect to my childhood, to my college days and to those long lost places that I’ve always dreamed of going. I want to read them, and then put them down to pet the cat or whatever. I don’t want to read from a screen when I’m in that mode of reading,” she explains with the sheer logic of an idea that’s convincing.
Other academics such as Hartwig also view the Internet and online books as more of a “distraction because they slice information into bits and pieces and that doesn’t work for me when I’m trying to contemplate something serious such as a Charles Dickens tale,” Hartwig adds.
The scholar also notes that holiday reading should not be about “processing huge loads of information as one does while surfing the Net.”
“What draws someone to a good book over the summer months is to read about real depth of feeling. This is to not just complain about technology, but I don’t think you can have the same reading experience with a mechanical reader as with a traditional paper book. It’s just not as fun,” she says.
Image source of Dan reading a paperback book at the beach near Coos Bay Jan. 24; while saying “it’s nice just to pick-up a book and enjoy the peace and quiet of the beach on a nice day with the hassles of a machine showing you something to read.” Photo by Dave Masko
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