LISNews: - Comments for "Why I Refuse to BUY EBooks" Comments
for "Why I Refuse to BUY EBooks" en Subscribing to e-book
services <p>The term "e-book" is a misnomer. An e-book is not a
book. It is a computer file. The whole infrastructure of reading
is based on the book as a physical object -- including first-
sale rights, allowing us (at least in the United States) to do
with the physical book what we will, including reselling it or
borrowing it from the library. Can you re-sell an e-book? Can
you even copy it? An e-book simply isn't a book. Kindle giveth,
and Kindle taketh away, as with the Orwell case. Buying an
e-book makes no sense. For e-books, we need to move to a
subscription model -- for $17.99 a month, you get access to a
library, and then read anything you want. Or a library buys a
subscription for $5,000 or $6,000 a month and makes the contents
available to patrons, just as we do for journal articles through
EBSCO or Wilson. Charge a premium for access to books in heavy
demand. Make it like On Deman