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Entry tags:
Showing off
One of the recent topics that gets brought up in ebooks-vs-print discussions is "you can't show off your library of ebooks." This is often said sarcastically, as if it were promoting elite snobbery to want to show off a book collection--Having a bookshelf full of big books lets you showoff to visitors exactly how educated and cultured you are. An unclutter site admonishes that Bookshelves are for storing reference books, books of great value to you, and books you plan to read. Bookshelves are not for trying to impress other people. Often, it's implied that this is an advantage of ebooks--once everyone switches to digital, we'll stomp out those arrogant people who fill their home and office shelves with "fancy" books they've never read.
As if "impress people" were the only reason you'd want a rack of books that other people could read. As if nobody keeps a lending library in their home (don't we pay taxes for those?) and nobody uses books as an honest method of home decorating: instead of posters, here's 1000 stories I care about. Here's the art that touches me; here's a list of people whose words have influenced my life.
Can't do that with ebooks--and it's a problem. Ebooks are solitary. Book *reading* is solitary, but literary culture is social; we share books, suggest what we think others would like, keep odd books we didn't care for because we know that someday, we'll find that person who needs to read that one, and it'll be long out of print. We keep books with beautiful covers even if we didn't care for the contents, and nothing is wrong with that. We put large books on our coffee tables so friends can ooh and aah at beautiful pictures and chat about which parts of those books relate to our daily lives.
Bookshelves aren't just a matter of pretension and competition; they're also art, personality, and communication. And ebooks fail at that. The few suggestions at partial fixes--screensavers with bookcovers, postcards you can tack up on your walls--feel like patchwork solutions because they are. Even ignoring that many ebooks don't have covers, or don't have good ones, they're an obvious extra, a pastede-on-yay fix-it because ebooks *don't* have a display method.
I'm not sure there can be a solution to this. Computers aren't designed to "display" their contents; they're designed to help you find & open what you want. Detail or thumbnail lists is as close as we get to display, and there's still no easy way to share those. (Elaborate arrangements involving a projector and a rotating slideshow of covers ganked from Amazon is not going to be the answer.)
I am certain that the device that figures out how to code in a "selective bookshelf" function will make substantial sales from referrals. Display cover thumbnails on a main page that can be clicked to see a larger cover & meta information (brief synopsis, title, author, publishing date, length of book); people who ask "is that one of those Kindle things?" will get told, "no, it's the ParmaGul Elite; lookit this..." and poof, shelf-of-books, just like if they visited the person's house and saw the bedside collection. The ability to show off "my favorite books" (say, a list of no more than 30 or 3 screensful) would (1) sell more of those books and (2) sell more of whatever device had that ability.
We need ways to make ebooks more social. We may never find a way to replace the wall-o-books arranged in efficient or artistic ways, but we *could* find ways to support people who want to encourage others to read ebooks.
5 Related articles:
In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover [if you notice the jackets on the books people are reading on a plane or in the park, you might decide to check out “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” or “The Help,” too.]
A Physical Presence for Ebooks [1. You can't have a shelf full of books to impress people.]
The Art of Creating Emotional Attachments to Digital Objects [one of the reasons why people love physical books is that they announce to other people -- friends, guests, or the nosy onlooker -- that I am a Book Person.]
5 Reasons Why E-Books Aren’t There Yet [5) E-books can’t be used for interior design.]
Why Wired Is Wrong About eBooks: Digital Reading is Ready for Primetime [I enjoy looking through the bookshelves of friends and new acquaintances to get a glimpse of their personalities.]
As if "impress people" were the only reason you'd want a rack of books that other people could read. As if nobody keeps a lending library in their home (don't we pay taxes for those?) and nobody uses books as an honest method of home decorating: instead of posters, here's 1000 stories I care about. Here's the art that touches me; here's a list of people whose words have influenced my life.
Can't do that with ebooks--and it's a problem. Ebooks are solitary. Book *reading* is solitary, but literary culture is social; we share books, suggest what we think others would like, keep odd books we didn't care for because we know that someday, we'll find that person who needs to read that one, and it'll be long out of print. We keep books with beautiful covers even if we didn't care for the contents, and nothing is wrong with that. We put large books on our coffee tables so friends can ooh and aah at beautiful pictures and chat about which parts of those books relate to our daily lives.
Bookshelves aren't just a matter of pretension and competition; they're also art, personality, and communication. And ebooks fail at that. The few suggestions at partial fixes--screensavers with bookcovers, postcards you can tack up on your walls--feel like patchwork solutions because they are. Even ignoring that many ebooks don't have covers, or don't have good ones, they're an obvious extra, a pastede-on-yay fix-it because ebooks *don't* have a display method.
I'm not sure there can be a solution to this. Computers aren't designed to "display" their contents; they're designed to help you find & open what you want. Detail or thumbnail lists is as close as we get to display, and there's still no easy way to share those. (Elaborate arrangements involving a projector and a rotating slideshow of covers ganked from Amazon is not going to be the answer.)
I am certain that the device that figures out how to code in a "selective bookshelf" function will make substantial sales from referrals. Display cover thumbnails on a main page that can be clicked to see a larger cover & meta information (brief synopsis, title, author, publishing date, length of book); people who ask "is that one of those Kindle things?" will get told, "no, it's the ParmaGul Elite; lookit this..." and poof, shelf-of-books, just like if they visited the person's house and saw the bedside collection. The ability to show off "my favorite books" (say, a list of no more than 30 or 3 screensful) would (1) sell more of those books and (2) sell more of whatever device had that ability.
We need ways to make ebooks more social. We may never find a way to replace the wall-o-books arranged in efficient or artistic ways, but we *could* find ways to support people who want to encourage others to read ebooks.
5 Related articles:
In E-Book Era, You Can’t Even Judge a Cover [if you notice the jackets on the books people are reading on a plane or in the park, you might decide to check out “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” or “The Help,” too.]
A Physical Presence for Ebooks [1. You can't have a shelf full of books to impress people.]
The Art of Creating Emotional Attachments to Digital Objects [one of the reasons why people love physical books is that they announce to other people -- friends, guests, or the nosy onlooker -- that I am a Book Person.]
5 Reasons Why E-Books Aren’t There Yet [5) E-books can’t be used for interior design.]
Why Wired Is Wrong About eBooks: Digital Reading is Ready for Primetime [I enjoy looking through the bookshelves of friends and new acquaintances to get a glimpse of their personalities.]
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