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Alfirin · 09-06-2011, 01:07 PM

One other advantage of the e-book is that it should allow for far more rapid updating and correction of material. Any errors of text that slip by before release can be quickly corrected, and those correction can automatically be sent to anyone who bought the book, rather than having to buy another copy. Or if the author decides the book for some reason needs another chapter or a addional essay in the appendix, it can go to everyone, rather than those who have the money to buy the book a second time (it will also end having to continually buy addional editions of the same book (unless you want to) just becuse it has one more three page foreward added. This, I feel, will be particularly important in the case of reference material and scientific literature. As it stands now, a lot of, scientific material (in particualr I'm thinking of things like identification and field guides) tend to suffer from a triple whammy. They tend (if comprehensive) to be far too large and unwieldy to actually be taken into the field, the very limited market tends to result in them being absurdly expensive, and the continual accumulation of new knowledge means that they tend to go obsolete very. very quickly (often, from a funtional point of view, almost before they can be published).
That being said, these very advantages could in my opinion, create their own sort of problems. The ease with which errors can be corrected may result in less care being taken not to make errors in the first place. The ability to update all of the copies of a book simutaneously may result in the loss of a trail of a books evolution (imagine, for example, if the changes JRRT made to the hobbit automatically erased all previos versions of those sections, so the "corrected" text was the only one we ever saw.) As someone who also has a fondness for the Illustrated book, I also worry that the proliferation of the e-book, which can be transmitted easily, may result in a "lock" between a books text and illustrations that is far tighter than we are used to. Part of the reason we have so many different wonderfult artistic concepts of many books (especially when considered in a world wide aspect) is the variable skills of printing all over the world and the fact that, as it stands now the text of a book and the illustrations of a book are often under seperate copyright. If sending a book to another country becomes simply a matter of running it through a good translator program, I can easily see a situation where it becomes the norm for a book and it's pictures to "become one", and legal deviation to become far, far rarer.

09-06-2011, 01:07 PM	#78
Alfirin Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 435	One other advantage of the e-book is that it should allow for far more rapid updating and correction of material. Any errors of text that slip by before release can be quickly corrected, and those correction can automatically be sent to anyone who bought the book, rather than having to buy another copy. Or if the author decides the book for some reason needs another chapter or a addional essay in the appendix, it can go to everyone, rather than those who have the money to buy the book a second time (it will also end having to continually buy addional editions of the same book (unless you want to) just becuse it has one more three page foreward added. This, I feel, will be particularly important in the case of reference material and scientific literature. As it stands now, a lot of, scientific material (in particualr I'm thinking of things like identification and field guides) tend to suffer from a triple whammy. They tend (if comprehensive) to be far too large and unwieldy to actually be taken into the field, the very limited market tends to result in them being absurdly expensive, and the continual accumulation of new knowledge means that they tend to go obsolete very. very quickly (often, from a funtional point of view, almost before they can be published). That being said, these very advantages could in my opinion, create their own sort of problems. The ease with which errors can be corrected may result in less care being taken not to make errors in the first place. The ability to update all of the copies of a book simutaneously may result in the loss of a trail of a books evolution (imagine, for example, if the changes JRRT made to the hobbit automatically erased all previos versions of those sections, so the "corrected" text was the only one we ever saw.) As someone who also has a fondness for the Illustrated book, I also worry that the proliferation of the e-book, which can be transmitted easily, may result in a "lock" between a books text and illustrations that is far tighter than we are used to. Part of the reason we have so many different wonderfult artistic concepts of many books (especially when considered in a world wide aspect) is the variable skills of printing all over the world and the fact that, as it stands now the text of a book and the illustrations of a book are often under seperate copyright. If sending a book to another country becomes simply a matter of running it through a good translator program, I can easily see a situation where it becomes the norm for a book and it's pictures to "become one", and legal deviation to become far, far rarer.