I bought three books this week from Amazon that I already own as eBooks.
I like them. Obviously. And felt like I wanted to own them. As if I didn’t already.
So what does this mean? What does this say about me? What does it say about ownership of a physical document vs. ownership of a digital one?
Find Dave Schwartz on Twitter @daveschwartz.
[...] friend (and cousin-in-law) Dave Schwartz asked a very interesting question on his blog yesterday morning: what does it mean to own a book? He describes his [...]
I'm a PhD student studying mass communication at the University of Iowa; director of the University of Iowa Summer Journalism Workshops; and board member, Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism.
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I love digital books, music, and movies. I have easy access to thousands of songs and books anywhere I go and I don’t have to clutter my space with them, lug them around, or have to deal with them if I move. I realize many people right now still like physical books and other media, but the physical form is dying. They will be like records in the future – still around but a niche market. The younger generation is growing up just fine with digital media and won’t have a need for books. Everyone will have a smartphone with instant access to any media they want. Exciting times.
Greg,
I too love the ease of digital media, especially music. I can’t remember the last time I bought music anywhere but online. I even like digital books. I love the ease and convenience of always having a book on me and not having to carry something extra. If I have a few down minutes or a bit of a wait for an oil change or whatever, a book is on my phone.
What I found peculiar about this week, and the three books I bought, isn’t that I was taking some grand stand against the digitizing of books, but rather that I liked the ones I read so much that I wanted them in what I perceive to be a more permanent form for both personal and professional reasons.
Whatever it says, ditto for me. I often buy books after I’ve listened to their audible.com versions. I also hate to borrow a book from anyone, even the library. What I have read becomes a part of me, and I want to own it. I also want to break its spine, write in the margins, fold the corners and leave chocolate fingerprints occasionally. Mine, mine, mine. I’m really not a materialistic person in most ways, but I like books–and I like to own them.
I have some physical books but haven’t double bought. Owning (in the cloud) a digital copy and physical copy are the same in my estimation. I do like the fact that with my e-reader I can continue my tradition of having 3-4 books going at once.
I can’t shake the feeling that a book in digital form doesn’t really belong to me. It’s my issue and I need to get over it. I realize that.
E-books clutter our latest techno toys, printed books clutter our houses. E-books are the latest and greatest trend, but printed books are classics. E-books don’t require the commitment of printed books, but printed books require a tree for that commitment.E-books are not future heirlooms, unlike the printed books that belonged to my grand father and great-grand father. E-books are less expensive than a printed book, but an expensive techno toy is needed to read them. E-books are a convenient choice on occasion, but printed books will be around for a long time – there are too many reasons we need them.
I love this response. Love it.
I think we want to have physical relationships with things we like. Just as riding a motorcycle and watching someone ride motorcycle on you tube are different, I think reading a e book and a real book are different too. There is a market for both it seems.
I see what you’re getting at, but I disagree on some level. Riding a motorcycle and watching someone ride a motorcycle on YouTube are vastly different experiences. Reading Catch-22 on an iPad vs. reading Catch-22 in traditional book form still gives you the experience of having read Catch-22. But I think you’re absolutely right about the physical relationship. I look at books on our bookshelf and am flooded with ideas and memories. I never look at our iPad library. I just click and read, and it doesn’t feel the same.
We live in curious and confusing times, as have pretty much all our anscestors throughout all of recorded shitory. Some lines that once seemed clear are always starting to blur, and that is always going to make us uncomfortable to some extent, although we all have varying degrees of tolerrance for such unease, especially when with it come excitement and the promise of new and better (?) things just ahead.
Personally, digital propety feels ephemeral still. I love the fact that I can own whole seasons of my favorite TV show without having thick cases devouring inch after inch of my precious bookshelf space. But at the same time, I can’t see them, I can’t hold them, I can’t really know that I have them: I have to believe in them, ultimately. And that leap of faith in the reliability of digital property is a hard one to make, and far harder (for many people) when it comes to books than to music and visual entertainments. Why? Because our relationship to books is inherently a more physical one, at least it always has been since people started reading to themselves back in late antiquity. (Augustine comments in Confessions how bizarre it was that his mentor Ambrose would sit by himslef and read silently, rather than aloud as everyone else did.) We carry books with us, we curl up with them, we smash creeping things with them, we amass long shelves full of them, we press treasured momentos in them. They are touchstones for many of us.
And now that is changing. The presentation of texts to be read is migrating to ever-improving digital devices that allow us to carry copious amounts of reading material about with us in our purses and man-bags. I cannot see this as a bad thing, but it is still a hard thing to adjust to at a deep level. It is one thing to embrace the ease and convenice this shift offers, but it is another to compensate for the unconscious expectations of what it means to hold a book, to own a book, to possess a book. We’ll get used to it in time: we’re good at that.
Your comment got me thinking about this in generational and emotional contexts. I could care less about my music collection being in cassette, CD or digital form. But books … books are personal. I take books as personally as I take food.
Clearly, digital is where things are headed for people who are financially able to own and maintain digital devices. Like you wrote, we’re all at the mercy of history’s inertia. And we’re good at adapting.
I’m old school, you know that. I just don’t enjoy reading a newspaper or a book as much unless I can actually feel the pages. For some reason, for me, the tactile part of the reading experience makes it a better, deeper experience.
Like Aldean wrote, to some the digital experience feels more ephemeral, more easily discarded or forgotten.
I still enjoy the physical paperback book. When I read it is to relax and the feel of a book does the trick better for me than an e-reader. Plus, I can beat up a bool in the bootom of a bacpack or read in the tub without worry that I might damage the e-reader. I am with you on the comfort of an old school book.
Exactly. I once left my paperback copy of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch somewhere when I only had, like, 30 pages to go. Man, I was so mad, but I was only out $7. If I would have forgotten an e-reader, we’re talking potentially hundreds of dollars.
Your question is excellent and reminds me of one of the most though-provoking books I ever read, “Medium is the Massage” by Marshall McLuhan. Below are a few thoughts on that book, quoted from Wikipedia.
Marshall McLuhan argues that technologies — from clothing to the wheel to the book, and beyond — are the messages themselves, not the content of the medium. In essence, The Medium is the Massage is a graphical and creative representation of his “medium is the message” thesis seen in Understanding Media.
By playing on words and utilizing the term “massage,” McLuhan is suggesting that modern audiences have found current media to be soothing, enjoyable, and relaxing; however, the pleasure we find in new media is deceiving, as the changes between society and technology are incongruent and are perpetuating an Age of Anxiety.
All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.
The Medium is the Massage demonstrates how modern media are extensions of human senses; they ground us in physicality, but expand our ability to perceive our world to an extent that would be impossible without the media. These extensions of perception contribute to McLuhan’s theory of the Global Village, which would bring humanity full circle to an industrial analogue of tribal mentality.
Finally, McLuhan described key points of change in how man has viewed the world and how these views were changed by the adoption of new media. “The technique of invention was the discovery of the nineteenth [century]“, brought on by the adoption of fixed points of view and perspective by typography, while “[t]he technique of the suspended judgment is the discovery of the twentieth century”, brought on by the bard abilities of radio, movies and television.”
David, although I love “owning” my hard-copy books, these days I do most of my book reading on my Kindle Fire, that multifunction medium which tries to massage my 62 year old, 21st century brain. I have yet to figure out how to listen to music, get on the Internet, or check email with a physical book. And, the price per book is more economical in the e-versions. Yet, I still regularly find myself browsing at Barnes and Noble. Yes, Those physical books look much nicer and more comforting on my bookshelves than would a row of Kindles. I suspect I may have added more to your uncertainties., and if that is the case, my apologies.
Great, well now I’m REALLY confused.
McLuhan’s points are well taken. In fact, one of the books I bought (again) this week is Technopoly, by the late Neil Postman, which covers many of those same ideas.
Thanks for that feedback. I found it quite useful.
You can develop a relationship with a book. The paper, the binding, the typeface (a/k/a font), the illustrations all add to the experience of reading. You can bookmark multiple pages and go back and forth between them with minimal effort. And a real book captures a moment in time, a zeitgeist with all its cultural references and attitudes.
Electronic books are more — frustrating. It’s harder to go back and forth to a reference point like a map or list of characters, and e-book pages have fewer words than real book pages because of their relative size. E-book illustrations can be enlarged but it’s frustrating when the pixel density results in a blurrier close-up).
You can’t read e-books in the tub; the Nook or Kindle is heavier than a paperback and is not waterproof. It’s much harder to share an e-book or pass it along to a friend or hand down to the next generation. An e-book reference book or instruction book is more challenging to use; somehow the information/instructions are briefer.
So what does this all mean? I have an e-reader and use it frequently. I also have enough books for a small-town library, and read from my library. And I think real books are very important for kids to own and hold and feel and see.
It’s only a matter of time before we’re able to share e-books. Libraries already check them out. And just as Apple allows people to authorize up to five machines to play songs from your iTunes library, the same will happen for books.
I do wonder what our kids think of e-books. They love hard copies, but they love e-books too. They just love to read in general. They’ll probably look back at this conversation in 20 years and wonder what the big deal is. A book is a book, they’ll say.
It means you like to share things you like. A physical book allows you to put it on display. Perhaps someone will see it on a shelf and ask you about it. You can pull it out, think briefly about the way that book made you feel, then offer to share that book/feeling with the person who asked about it.
This probably won’t happen. How often does someone come over to your house, ask about a specific book on a shelf, then borrow and read it? But the potential is there, so you keep the book on display just in case.
It’s true, a finished book does feel like a trophy of sorts. When I see a book on the shelf I’ve read, I feel like I accomplished something.
My favorite books are not just about the stories they tell but about the books themselves. I can identify some of my favorites by their weight, size, thickness of the pages. Even as a child I knew Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” had thick pages with a certain roughness that perfectly suited his art. In contract, Dr. Suess books were always tall with shiny, smooth pages that added to the vibrant colors. I hate to think of a time when childrens’ experiences with books will be tied only to the words on “the page” and neglect the page itself.
I wonder if they (kids) will naturally migrate to other experiences. Maybe not the feel of the pages, but the vibrancy or uniqueness of the art. It’s hard to say.
I know what you mean about how a book feels. I can still tell a Shel Silverstein book by the rough ends of the paper stock.
I think ownership is more than a physical thing. I don’t find a connection to e-writings because it’s not “just there” to make you pick it up or to evoke a memory.
The easiest comparison I can make comes from my love of newspapers that started as a kid reading the sports section to now in my post-newspaper career phase of life.
I will always want to have a newspaper in my hands and have it in the house. There’s a connection that reminds me of the pile of papers on the floor at my grandparents apartment on a Sunday morning. Plus, I can always use it for packing materials when I’m shipping things I sold on eBay.
Now, none of that is to say I don’t go check for news online, on my phone or iPad. I do that out of convenience or, more often, to fill waiting time somewhere. It’s not part of my routine to flip the laptop open to find a story before walking down driveway to grab the paper.
I have a similar connection to books. Seeing them on the shelf will occasionally remind me of when I got it, who I got it from, where I read it, why I had to have it. Sure, we’ll put a few books and magazines on the iPad for us or our son, but only for travel convenience or necessity.
One reason I like to read physical books, magazines and newspapers is so my kids can see me reading them, and hopefully part of that will help instill in them some understanding of how important those tools are. If they see me on an iPad, for all I know they might think I’m watching Netflix (very possible) or playing Angry Birds. But kids, to some degree, emulate their parents. I don’t have to explain to anyone how important reading is, or how important it is to be aware of what’s going on in your community. When they see me engaging with what they KNOW is a book, or a magazine, or whatever, I like to think a part of them understands that this is something they should also be doing.
Ownership of a physical object such as a book still feels more permanent, more “real”, whatever that means, than ownership of an intangible one. (Doesn’t mean I don’t a kindle but certain books you want to keep forever.) It’s the same reason I still order actual prints and have albums of photos rather than just keeping them all on my computer, iphone, etc. Besides, I don’t trust the reliability of any electronic device enough to believe that (1) it will last forever (or at least outlast me) and (2) the media stored on that device will be accessible to me for the years to come rathern than superceded by new technology that renders obsololete my device and the media on it.
Daphne, this is off topic, but I was just thinking about that photo issue this morning. I stopped keeping a physical photo album about four years ago. I’d like to start it up again, and at the same time, I’d like to scan in my old photos (I’m talking decades old) to have those preserved electronically.
I worry for people who use Facebook as their primary photo album.
I’m not sentimental about most things, and I hate to have things around me that I don’t need. I do a stuff purge at least twice a year, and that includes books.
I actually purged nearly all of my books a few months ago. I wanted one of the bookshelves in my room for my daughter, I didn’t want to donate my husband’s books without his permission and I’m down to maybe five books I wouldn’t prefer reading on Kindle. And yearbooks, and cookbooks – I’ve come to realize I like looking at physical books more than I like reading them (I do think print is a better medium for photography.)
I’ve always preferred paper backs to hardbacks, though – I’d prefer a book I can thrown in my purse and throw out if I didn’t want it anymore to something heavy (with a dust jacket I’d lose). Actually, I have worn out hardbacks, too. So ereaders make a good next step for me – throw 20 books in purse at once and I can focus on the three I’m reading at the moment.
I do worry about book stores, which I prefer to books. Last summer I took daughter to Homers in the Old Market in Omaha THE music store to go to when I was in high school and explained the concept of a music store to her – it’s something she won’t grow up with. I know some book stores will hold on, and I’m okay with them becoming glorified coffee houses, but I’d miss having the chance to browse through books.
I have bought books simply because I wanted to own them. There is something magical about looking at a bookcase and seeing all that wonderful reading material. How could one ever be bored with all those worlds there? I want to hold the book in my hand, not read it on a screen. I spend far too much of my professional life looking at a screen; I’ m not going to do that in my own time.
Unless I wanna take notes, real notes, I’d much rather have an e-book. Until technology can reach an adequate level of verisimilitude for easily-paged post-it notes, arrows, stars, highlighting marks, brackets, and marginal doodles, the physical book will remain my preferred method of serious and prolonged study. All other purposes, though? E-book, all the way.