Clearly I Was Born in the Wrong Century, Part Deux

Posted 24 August, 2007 in Book News |

So far, ebook technology has failed to catch on, largely because the market for this technology — dedicated readers — remains wedded to books. Not just as information storage-and-retrieval devices, but as physical objects that can be held, flipped through, underlined, and annotated. One of the great joys of books is their sensuous aspect, their tactility and the smell of the ink on the pages.

Before you assume that I’ve gone right off the deep end for mentioning the smell of books, consider this recent post from Engadget, which reports that “ebook content provider CafeScribe is going pretty low-tech to give your laptop screen the same scent as a textbook: the company is shipping ‘musty-smelling’ scratch-and-sniff stickers with every ebook order.”

To me, this idea is, well, nutty. Not only does it take the one advantage ebooks boast — their technological innovation — and marry it to something self-consciously retro, but it begs the question, if readers enjoy the smell of books so much, why would they not just, you know, read actual books?

Just wondering.

(via The Shifted Librarian)

2 comments to “Clearly I Was Born in the Wrong Century, Part Deux”

Panic, August 24th, 2007 at 4:41 pm:

• I agree that books will always be preferable to ebooks. I’m one of those people who makes a lot of notes in the margins (less so as the years go on, sadly). However, when I was assigned The Gutenberg Elegies third-year, I was almost tempted to go the other way, just to spite Sven Birkerts.

Steven W. Beattie, August 24th, 2007 at 6:40 pm:

• Really? I liked The Gutenberg Elegies …

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