# Internet and books



## Lombard Beige

I couldn't find a thread exactly on this topic, so here goes.

I've been using the Internet for years, but I only recently took out a twenty-four flat-rate subscription and I find that it changes everything. Previously, if I needed in-depth information or the text of a book, I would go to a library or a bookshop. Now, I can consult and even download whole texts free of charge, starting with Wikipedia.  

Similarly, I am beginning not to consult my paper dictionaries and, even more significantly, my CD dictionaries. So, if I want to read something about or by George Borrow or on China, for instance, I now use the computer rather than buy or order a book. No objections to buying books, but after a time they begin to take up space, and they can be difficult to locate when you need them if they are not classified using a library system, which also takes time. All this disappears with a computer.

The only problem I still have is physical “comfort”, as I am used to reading a physical book. Perhaps there are, or soon will be, small (but not too small, I hope) book-size readers?

Comments?

 regards


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## IlPetaloCremisi

It happens kind of the same to me. Internet is quick and easy to use and it really offers almost everything, from dictionaries to free encyclopedias. But I only use it to search for informations.I could never start reading a whole book on internet...I have kind of a phisical love towards books. I like touching them, smelling them...I know it may sound like I am a maniac or something lol, but that's it...for example yesterday my cousin sent me the link of a site where I can read some stories or poems by Cortazar, but i gave up...Not only cause it is not comfortable, but I really cant concieve it!


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## Paulfromitaly

I agree with you: internet has changed everyone's life.
I still love reading physical books of course, but when it comes to consulting a dictionary or something which needs to be updated frequently, information you can find on-line has no equals.


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## TrentinaNE

My favorite place to read books is the bathtub -- and I won't be taking a laptop there!


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## sabrinita85

TrentinaNE said:


> My favorite place to read books is the bathtub -- and I won't be taking a laptop there!


LOL, what a curious place!


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## cuchuflete

"I'm lucky I guess," he said, feeling the heat of the wood-stove on his back, but still seeing his breath condense
as the house began to slowly warm after yet another power outage.  

I live by a river, and the winds rip down it from the North, often tearing trees and limbs, and dropping these on electric power lines.  Loss of electricity, internet connections, light and heat are common here.  So I maintain the habit of keeping candles, oil lamps and books around for those WR-free moments.  I also read in bed, lying in the grass in summer, sitting on a rocking chair on the porch that overlooks the river.

I've been a printer of books, a dealer in rare books, and a collector, as well as a lifelong reader.  Like IlPetalo, I enjoy books for not only their ideas, but also for their physical aspects.  Web pages don't usually have physical texture of an imprinted page, the usual type faces lack grace, there is no smell of leather or old cloth bindings,
no scribbled marginalia from prior owners.  Web pages don't have 'foxing', that random brownish staining of
acid papers, nor dust wrappers, or gilt edges or cockeral end papers.

The internet is efficient, instantaneous, utilitarian.  I like it.   Books have other dimensions to be savored.


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## Etcetera

I remember a nice picture my fellow students sent to me just before our exams. 
It was entitled "A nightmare", and it was a picture of two pages of some book. Instead of one of these pages, there was the "system notice": "Page not found". It looked truly awful! One of the reasons why I strongly prefer "real" books to e-books. 
Let alone that you can't take you computer with you to read in the metro, for example. And you can't lie down on your sofa with your computer. 
I can't believe that there will be time when people won't be reading books. The Internet is good, but... not so good.


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## Binapesi

But it is something quite different to touch and feel the papers of a book like IlPetaloCremisi said.  I use internet too for my researches and especially for my homeworks but I never meant to read a book on internet, meanly on computer. It both tires my eyes and there wont be any enjoyment of reading. It would be like something abstract, you see. It is the papers of a book that makes a book concrete.


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## Etcetera

Keyt said:


> I use internet too for my researches and especially for my homeworks but I never meant to read a book on internet, meanly on computer.


I still do it sometimes. 
For example, if I can't find a book I need desperately for my exam or just a seminar, I can download it from an online library and read it (but still I prefer to print the book out). 
If I'm considering buying a book but I'm not sure whether I'll like it, I can find the book on the Net and read several pages in order to decide if I like the book enough to spend my money on it.


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## Lombard Beige

Etcetera said:


> ...  For example, if I can't find a book I need desperately for my exam or just a seminar, I can download it from an online library and read it (but still I prefer to print the book out).
> If I'm considering buying a book but I'm not sure whether I'll like it, I can find the book on the Net and read several pages in order to decide if I like the book enough to spend my money on it.



That is the kind of thing I was thinking of. For example, last year I ordered 3 books published in the 1930's, and I received them respectively after 1 week, 3 weeks and 2 months ... The problem is that if I need them for work, I need them tomorrow, not after 2 months. 

Similarly, before Internet, I sometimes had to buy or order books only to find that they were not what I was looking for. 

Another example: I bought a book entitled "Manual of Law French" (cost: 39.50 Pounds in 1993 !)  thinking that I would find something useful for French/English legal translations. Instead, the book is all about "law French", which is to say the Norman French that was used in English legal documents for hundreds of years after the language ceased to be used in the courts. The book explains for instance that "feme sole" (pronounced  English-style "feem sole") means "single woman", while "feme covert" (pron. "feem covert") means "married woman". Interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for. In fact, I used the book for the very first time last week to correct "voir dire" into "voire dire" from the Latin "vere dicere" (= to tell the truth). Using Internet and WordReference, etc., this is one book buy that I could have avoided. 

As I said at the beginning, I too find it uncomfortable and even unpleasant to read on the computer screen, and that's why I was hoping that someone will bring out a sort of booksize reader, not for "pleasure reading", but for reading texts that you read once and never again.

regards


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## Binapesi

Etcetera said:


> I still do it sometimes.
> For example, if I can't find a book I need desperately for my exam or just a seminar, I can download it from an online library and read it (but still I prefer to print the book out).
> If I'm considering buying a book but I'm not sure whether I'll like it, I can find the book on the Net and read several pages in order to decide if I like the book enough to spend my money on it.



Good point.


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## Joca

Well, maybe this is off-topic, but anyway I will say that with the advent of the Internet, letter-writing has suffered more, much more, than book-reading. Who on earth still writes letters? Very few people, indeed.

JC


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## karuna

I write letters every day, even more than before the Internet era. Of course, due to cheap IP telephony calls it is much easier just to call my friends in other places, yet due to time zone differences it is often preferred to write an e-mail so that I wouldn't disturb them unnecessarily. I don't agree that letter writing has decreased except maybe among younger teens who live in the total instant messaging culture that they don't really know how to write a proper e-mail letter. But it just a matter of age and experience.

As for paper books, I prefer electronic versions for dictionaries. In fact I have invested in Palm handheld with 6 different dictionaries (JP>EN, ES>EN, EN>SP, EN>RU, SP>RU and a Webster) and I would have put more, especially EN>LV and SP>LV if they were available. Sometimes I also use it for reading e-books while commuting. I find it much more comfortable to take with me a handheld than carrying a big book, however, the screen size is rather small. I am still waiting for technology advances that will give us rollable screens or something like that. 

Sometimes I think I could buy a book for reading but then I think about it as something wasteful. I know that I will read it only once and then it will only occupy space in my bookshelf and gather dust and finally I will just throw it away. On the other hand I could keep an electronic version with very little overhead.


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## Joca

karuna said:


> I write letters every day, even more than before the Internet era.
> ...


 
Karuna, you're an exception! Congratulations! I hope (and expect) that you use a pen rather than a keyboard to produce your letters.

JC


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## francophone

I prefer physical books, I read in bed, on the road, between lectures, in a cafe or a restaurant, on the beach, on a boat or wherever.

I also enjoy having a physical library, I love my books, my room would be worthless without books. 

The funny thing is that I've read Dan Brown's "angels and demons" on my laptop, and I read it in a couple of days, it was a quickie. Maybe because I'm used to do all my work online, my researches, finding more resources to help me with my studies, I don't know...

My second read would be xxx, but I'm kinda slow, the time I spend on my laptop is kinda limited these days.

I still enjoy reading my books as they are, but I rather studying using softcopies of my college books or lectures. ( I guess that's because I'd find some distraction).


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## cherine

*Mod note:*
*For those interested in discussing the effect of Internet on written correspondence, please use this thread.*
*Further posts about this will be considered off-topic, and will be deleted.*

*Thank you all *


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## Hakro

The future solution is the combination of Internet and books: An electronic book that has pages just like classic books (except that they are plastic, not paper). You connect this book to your computer and download any book you like from Internet. The text appears on the thin plastic pages, just like on the paper pager of an ordinary book.

This gives me the possibility to have two pages open simultaneously, which is seldom possible in the Internet books, dictionaries and encyclopedias. I have so far preferred classic books but this might change my mind.

For the first time I heard about these future electronic books some five years ago, but they haven't yet succeeded to develop the pages thin enough and the books cheap enough. But when it's done, you'll have only one book on your shelf and you have all the books there; and you can read it in the bath, too.


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## Athaulf

Lombard Beige said:


> Similarly, I am beginning not to consult my paper dictionaries and, even more significantly, my CD dictionaries.



A good online dictionary (WR being the premier example) is much more useful than a paper one.  I find it hard to imagine a paper dictionary where you could search for a conjugated form of an irregular verb whose infinitive you don't know and get it instantly identified -- and then get the whole conjugation table with irregular forms highlighted by just one more click. And being free doesn't hurt either.  The only advantage of paper dictionaries is their portability, but even that is losing importance with the proliferation of wireless internet access.



> So, if I want to read something about or by George Borrow or on China, for instance, I now use the computer rather than buy or order a book. No objections to buying books, but after a time they begin to take up space, and they can be difficult to locate when you need them if they are not classified using a library system, which also takes time. All this disappears with a computer.
> 
> The only problem I still have is physical “comfort”, as I am used to reading a physical book.


Except for dictionaries and other reference works (which indeed seem to be going downhill), I don't think paper books will lose importance in the foreseeable future.  Reading off screen is OK when one needs to absorb a relatively small, simple, and self-contained unit of information such as an encyclopedia or dictionary entry, but it gets extremely tiresome when one has to read a long or complicated text, even with a good monitor. Whenever I download books or research papers from the web, I always print them out before reading.



> Perhaps there are, or soon will be, small (but not too small, I hope) book-size readers?


Such readers already exist, although I don't see many of them around (probably because they aren't that much more handy than small laptops, which are otherwise much more versatile).


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## Athaulf

Hakro said:


> The future solution is the combination of Internet and books: An electronic book that has pages just like classic books (except that they are plastic, not paper). You connect this book to your computer and download any book you like from Internet. The text appears on the thin plastic pages, just like on the paper pager of an ordinary book.
> 
> This gives me the possibility to have two pages open simultaneously, which is seldom possible in the Internet books, dictionaries and encyclopedias. I have so far preferred classic books but this might change my mind.
> 
> For the first time I heard about these future electronic books some five years ago, but they haven't yet succeeded to develop the pages thin enough and the books cheap enough. But when it's done, you'll have only one book on your shelf and you have all the books there; and you can read it in the bath, too.



You're forgetting a very important advantage of paper books -- the possibility of writing your own notes on the margins (or if you don't want to deface the book, on pieces of paper and post-it notes inserted between relevant pages).  While this isn't something you'd normally do with a novel or poetry book, it's often very handy with math or technical books.  (And not just handy -- just look what impetus has been given to the development of math in the last four centuries by Fermat's scribbling on the margins. )


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## Hakro

Athaulf said:


> You're forgetting a very important advantage of paper books -- the possibility of writing your own notes on the margins (or if you don't want to deface the book, on pieces of paper and post-it notes inserted between relevant pages). While this isn't something you'd normally do with a novel or poetry book, it's often very handy with math or technical books. (And not just handy -- just look what impetus has been given to the development of math in the last four centuries by Fermat's scribbling on the margins. )


I agree 100%, Athaulf.

I didn't forget it, I just wanted to concentrate on the main points. And who knows what possibilities this future electronic book will offer?


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## Hakro

Athaulf said:


> A good online dictionary (WR being the premier example) is much more useful than a paper one. I find it hard to imagine a paper dictionary where you could search for a conjugated form of an irregular verb whose infinitive you don't know and get it instantly identified -- and then get the whole conjugation table with irregular forms highlighted by just one more click. And being free doesn't hurt either.  The only advantage of paper dictionaries is their portability, but even that is losing importance with the proliferation of wireless internet access.


A good online dictionary is fine but very rare. Yhe WR dicionary is good but limited.

So far I haven't met an online dictionary where I can open two pages simultaeously - nor one where I could see all the derivatives of a word on one page. In a paper dictionary I have these two advantages.


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## Athaulf

Hakro said:


> A good online dictionary is fine but very rare. Yhe WR dicionary is good but limited.



Perhaps for a very advanced learner, but I think that most dictionaries that actually get printed and sold are small- and medium-size ones intended for beginners and intermediate students. The WR dictionaries beat those in their scope.



> So far I haven't met an online dictionary where I can open two pages simultaeously - nor one where I could see all the derivatives of a word on one page. In a paper dictionary I have these two advantages.


When it comes to opening pages simultaneously, this can be easily  done (and even far surpassed) by a good user-interface design.  I'm not sure what you mean by "derivatives" of a word. If you mean the inflected forms, this is in fact a wonderful advantage of the WR dictionary.  If you mean words sharing the same root or something similar, then the problem is the lack of specialized dictionaries online, rather than some inherent disadvantage they would have over paper ones.


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## Hakro

Athaulf said:


> Perhaps for a very advanced learner, but I think that most dictionaries that actually get printed and sold are small- and medium-size ones intended for beginners and intermediate students. The WR dictionaries beat those in their scope.
> 
> When it comes to opening pages simultaneously, this can be easily done (and even far surpassed) by a good user-interface design. I'm not sure what you mean by "derivatives" of a word. If you mean the inflected forms, this is in fact a wonderful advantage of the WR dictionary. If you mean words sharing the same root or something similar, then the problem is the lack of specialized dictionaries online, rather than some inherent disadvantage they would have over paper ones.


You're right about the dictionaries for beginners and intermediate students but I'm neither of them.

I have no problems about opening several pages simultaneously (I have two 21-inch screens side by side in portrait position), but most of the users do not have this possibility. I have some CD-downloaded dictionaries (generally better than the online ones) that can give only one "page" in time.

By "derivatives" I mean words with the same root, compound words etc. I haven't found an online dictionary that gives me the possibility to glance these easily.

In this situation I'm using both printed and online dictionaries and in the same time I'm making my own vocabulary of the technical terms you can't find in any dictionary,


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## Lombard Beige

Athaulf said:


> ... Such readers already exist, although I don't see many of them around (probably because they aren't that much more handy than small laptops, which are otherwise much more versatile).



Thank you for the link. I understand the point about laptops, with all their additional power, but my experience with my latest laptop, which was rather expensive, is not overly positive, in the sense that it takes a long time to load. (I possibly have too much on it, but as I need my dictionaries, etc., also off-line, It would take too long to clean up the computer every time). So, what I was hoping for is a small simple dedicated device just for reading information texts (not for pleasure reading), but not when sitting at my desk, for which the fixed computer system is OK.

A final point: in the thread on language reform, the problem of dyslexia was discussed and I wanted to add that one of my grandsons (the soccer player, or rather the goal keeper) is dyslexic * and my daughter is helping him by unloading FREE e-books and playing them through a FREE audio reader.

[* Background: He lives in Tuscany, Italy, and is learning to read and write in Italian, which has a relatively easy spelling system, so the problem is not enormous, as someone pointed out, but a dyslexic person does have more problems in reading and writing than a non-dyslexic person. Before the problem became generally known, these people were considered simply as under-performers, but apparently, but I'm not an expert, they compensate through other skills, such as memory, use of numbers, 3-D conceptualization, etc. So, for certain jobs, dyslexia may not be a drawback. 
The problem is complicated by the fact that, although Italy has only a very limited degree of "federalism", dyslexics receive different treatment in the different regions. Here in Lombardy, there are support teachers and the child's condition is taken into account in their grading. In Tuscany, instead, the approach is to solve the problem with MONEY, i.e. they give the family a grant and leave it to them to solve the problem. Some do, as my daughter is trying to do, and some I suppose use the money for other things.]

regards


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## Lombard Beige

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT INTEND IN ANY WAY TO ADVERTISE A SPECIFIC PRODUCT; I AM TALKING ABOUT A GENERIC GROUP OF PRODUCTS.

Pursuing Athaulf's suggestion, I found the following on portable readers:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1983663,00.asp

This is more or less what I had in mind, but the price is still a bit steep (around 300 dollars), and I assume the  user friendliness and quality will improve too. 

Of course, its no replacement for REAL books, for pleasure reading, etc., but as a working tool I think we are moving in the right direction even for metro/subway/tube readers. 

regards


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## Angel.Aura

I search on the web for nearly anything that comes to my mind and that I am curious of. But it never entered my mind to read a book online.
I love to buy books, to choose them on the shelves of the book shop, to receive them as a gift and unwrap them. To pile them up my night table (or close to my bathtub, TrentinaNE!). I can still read my books when there's no computer available, when I'm on the beach, when I'm queuing in a traffic jam or simply when I don't want to waste electric power.


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## xarruc

I find that there is a big difference in both how I read and what I read on the internet and in hardcopy.

I read hardcopy when I go to the beach, on the bus or in bed. I read novels and I every word. Lately all the books I have read have been foreign and I look up every word I don't know. With the excption of one history book, I have never read a book on the internet. I don't read a lot in one go, rarely 
read the entire article, skim what I do, rarely read foreign language, and with the exception of some of TheSun's stories, I don't read fiction online.

Sure the internet has taken some (probably most) of the words I read away from the printed page, but there remains a completely different type of reading that is immune (at least for me, for now) from the internet.


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## Lombard Beige

xarruc said:


> ... I read hardcopy when I go to the beach, on the bus or in bed. ...



I think we all agree on this point, although on a train for example, a small handheld reader as discussed above could be useful I think to avoid bumping into people with one's elbow, etc.

The Internet I think is also useful for reading books in languages in which one is not particularly fluent. For example, I enjoy reading Wikipedia (again !?! ) in Latin, Romanian, Esperanto, etc., but I really need a dictionary in all three, and I think there are solutions in Internet. 

Somebody mentioned WordReference dictionaries as particularly useful, because they include conjugated verbs. But WordReference is not available in all languages. Has anyone had any particularly good experience in using [FREE NON COPYRIGHT] online dictionaries to read books in foreigh (for them) languages?

[This is not intended as a research question. My aim is to explore the possibilities that the Internet now offers all of us.]

regards


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