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Can E-Book Beat the Printed Book?Will e-book beat the printed book? We asked this question several people who work in the sphere of literature, publishing and information technology. Here are several opinions we got during the interviews:
Now we have the e-book. No doubt this latest device will find its own market, but I don't believe there'll be a great demand for it. Though we live in technical world, we still enjoy reading a book, relaxing and getting away from technology. There is something very satisfying when you hold a book in your hands. In fact, studies show that, when you read on a screen, your eyes and brain are constantly trying to see where you are on the page and how far you are from the end. When you read from paper, on the other hand, the hands help to provide that information. There are also claims about e-book’s environmental benefits, but no one has studied the environmental damage of an e-book throughout our entire life. The fact is that, despite new technologies, more books are being bought and read than at any other time in history. My prediction is that the traditional book publishing market will slowly become a smaller part of the growing entertainment and information market. And I think that's fine. A few years ago, many people were saying Amazon would destroy business of common bookshops and reduce choice. But the opposite has happened: Amazon has opened up the market in every part of the world for people who can't easily get to traditional booksellers. So, I can look at the e-book and then say, "Wow, it's clever!" — but I don't believe that it is the future.
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My company has produced online learning materials in which the text is accompanied by audio, so people studying languages can hear how the words on the page should be pronounced. In my view, the advantages of the e-book will be mainly for non-fiction and educational works. But you could also produce a novel that links to an interview with the author, or to a map of the place where the story takes place. The e-reader is not quite there yet. Of course most e-books today are available on a mono screen, with black letters on a white background. They don’t use video, audio, flash animation, etc. But all of this will improve. Then the e-book could revolutionize the spread of knowledge by taking the equivalent of a world library to communities that used to have only a few paperbacks before. In the Middle Ages, books were held by monasteries. In the 19th century libraries were built and books became more available. But if you live in a distant town in Africa, you're probably still waiting for a library. With an e-book, you could jump two stages ahead to get high-quality reading materials containing additional educational material. Such books are too expensive for most people now, but mass production always sees prices fall. An e-book has the benefit of being much more environmentally friendly. The e-book is also more writer-friendly, because it lowers the cost of getting a book to market.
Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1427
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