But Is It a Book?

You are right, kids. We do have too many books. We also have a ton of e-books. But this was the best overview that I've read about the basic difference between an ebook and a physical book. There are differences kids. We have so many rare and antiquarian books. The difference I'm seeing in reading a book published in the 18th century versus the same book downloaded fromarchive.com is so different. You have a sense of reverence and history when you're reading a book. A feeling of togetherness with the ancients. 

Still form and functionality are being diverged. Bit sad but we have to move with the times. 

Love

Baba

But Is It a Book? - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/but-is-it-a-book/38001

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Editor’s Note: Jennifer Howard spent a week in early July at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, taking a course on “Born-Digital Materials: Theory & Practice.” This is the first in a series of posts on the experience.

Charlottesville, Va. — What makes a book a book? For Michael F. Suarez, director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, a collection of texts on an e-reader doesn’t qualify in the fullest sense.

Over macaroni and cheese in early July at the Virginian, an eatery across from the university’s Grounds, Mr. Suarez talked with The Chronicle about how much more there is to a book than the words that go into it.

“When you take the text of Moby-Dick and pour it into a Kindle, you strip out the bibliographic codes and you strip out the social codes,” he says. “You lose that hermeneutic surplus of meaning that the book is.”