Page 72 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

the virtues we appreciate in well designed and produced physical books, such as the graphic quality of fine printing, fine color reproductions of im- ages especially in formats larger than the electronic screens, fine paper, fine bindings or beautiful dust jackets, when it comes to portability they have a tremendous advantage. In 2010 a Kindle weighing less than a pound could store up to 3500 eBooks with no weight gain. An equivalent library of hard- cover books would weigh over 10,000 pounds. Having spent my life in the world of physical books, and accustomed as I am to working with thousands of physical books, many of which are beautiful or have extremely interesting physical attributes, I am unwilling to give up the experience of collecting, handling and reading the physical objects. I want to feel the physical book, to turn actual, rather than virtual pages, especially when a book is a thing of beauty, or an object from another time or place, replete with historical meaning, sometimes with a dusty smell of the past. However, many books are not available to me in physical form, or lack the physical attributes that I value, and from my perspective there is little loss, and significant conve- nience gained, in owning and/or reading those in electronic form.
Ironically, distribution of electronic books on demand, or printing books on demand on digital presses, represents a return to aspects of the medieval model of book production, in which manuscript copies were produced on demand. Of course, unlike the one-at-a-time hand production of medie- val manuscripts, which, like any elaborate hand-production process, were produced more or less slowly depending upon their complexity and the nature of their writing or decoration, electronic books—no matter how complex—are produced much more rapidly using computerized typeset- ting, page layout, and graphics programs. Another great difference is that once the electronic edition is complete, distribution may be instantaneous. This production model, in which costs of paper, printing and binding are eliminated, along with the time involved in physical production and costs of warehousing and shipping, dramatically lowers the cost of publishing and reduces a great deal of the risk, allowing virtually anyone with a computer,
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