Study shows that the demand for traditional virtual book has started declining in 2009, following the global release of the Amazon Kindle book (a wireless reading device for e-book reading). People habit started to change; they demanded for more digital services. Publisher began to realize the importance of going online to survive (Cornwall 2010).
What is an e-book?
E-book is a text analogous to a book that is in digital form in which to be displayed on a digital devices (Lee 2002). Below is one of the devices used to read e-book:
Digital Device: Amazon Kindle
The advantages of reading an E-book?
- Cheaper cost (Shih 2004)
- E-book is relatively cheaper than virtual book because it requires no printing, shipping or storing cost.
- Save space and convenient (Chu 2003)
- A bookshelf is needed to keep the virtual book but for an e-book, files can be easily downloaded into different formats and be kept into a pen drive, computer hard-disk, CR-ROM, or in an iPod.
VS.
- Availability
- Internet is available 24/7 a week (Anuradha & Usha 2006). Hence, readers are able to get an immediate access to the books (Dillion 2001) they wanted and to download the file at anytime, and everywhere.
Source: Free e-book website
Click picture to enlarge
- In contrast, readers needed to go to the bookshop to get a virtual book. It is time consuming and worst of all, not all bookshops have the availability of the particular book.
- Navigability
- An e-book provides hypertext link for readers to navigate to a particular website for more information (Shih 2004). Thus, it provides flexibility for readers to browse certain references.
- Readers are able to read review before purchasing e-book or write a review after reading it.
Source: Free e-book website (readers review)
click picture to enlarge
- It also provides full in-text searching. An example below of an e-book (PDF file):
E-book downloaded into PDF file format
Click picture to enlarge
- Readability
- Changes of physical form of a book affect the readability of the readers. Study shows that people read faster with e-book compared to virtual book (Pattuelli & Rabina 2009)
- E-book makes readers easier to read as it provides various functions (e.g.different types of fonts)
- Adaptable back lighting
- Digital devices enable readers to adjust the back lighting to comfort their reading.
- Conversely, a virtual book lighting depends on the places (in-house or outdoor) where the readers' reading.
- Environmental Friendly
- Today, people are going green and saving trees nationwide. E-book is thus a way to the preserve the environment as it requires no printing on papers.
Although there are many advantages of using e-book, there are numbers of readers who still prefer reading virtually. Consider those who live in rural area or poorer country, they might not have the special equipment to read the e-book and it incurs a high cost to buy that equipment. Besides, according to Adler the types of books offered online is limited. Thus, only certain readers could get their wanted books online. In addition, few readers claimed that e-book is hard to read and browse compared to virtual book and that they are able to write notes on the virtual book but not with e-book (Chu 2003).
My Opinion
It would take a longer time for virtual books to emerge 100% into the digital world unless every individual worldwide is able to go online and more powerful devices are to be invented to eliminate the disadvantages mentioned above.
Referencing:
Anuradha, K T & Usha, H S 2006, "Use of e-books in an academic and research environment", viewed 12th June 2010
< http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2800400104.html >
Chu, H 2003, " Electronic books: Viewpoint from user and potential users", viewed 11th June 2010
< http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/Insight/ViewContentServlet?contentType=Article&Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2380210311.html >
Cornwall, D 2010, "E-book popularity on the rise", viewed 11th June 2010
< http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2849989.htm >
Dillian, D 2001, "E-books: The university of Texas experience, Part 2", viewed 12th June 2010
< http://assets.leeds2.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/Insight/ViewContentServlet;jsessionid=F026D48E96DB6144E9F37F32C1CCCCFF?contentType=Article&Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/2380190405.html >
Lee, S D 2002, "Building on electronic resource collection: A Practical guide", Library Association Publishing, London.
Pattuelli, M C &Rabina, D 2009, "Forms, effects, function: LIS student's attitudes towards portable e-book reader", viewed 12th June 2010
< http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/Insight/ViewContentServlet?contentType=Article&Filename=/published/emeraldfulltextarticle/pdf/2760620301.pdf >
Shih, K W 2004, "Print will be conquered by the invasion of Hypertext", viewed 12th June 2010
< http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:W_ga1peAi-QJ:scholar.google.com/+Internet+conquered+the+media+world&hl=en&as_sdt=2000>
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