KC Star book critic tells of Rocket eBook woes–and calls for format sanity

In a classy reply to yesterday’s post, Kansas City Star book critic John Mark Eberhart confirmed my belief–that actually he and I have very much in common in our unhappiness with the Tower of eBabel. I’ll quote a few sentences from his clueful message:

You’re right that I have one of the old Rocket eBooks, the model with the monochrome screen. Part of my dissatisfaction stems from having lost some texts via the thing as it became less and less useful–but I thank you for your alert regarding some things I might be missing. I’m going to check into that…

I think you’re right–we probably do see this more eye to eye than I thought. I have absolutely no philosophical objection to digital texts. All I want is some stability of some kind, you know? While no promises ever can be made, technology developers of all kinds need to be aware of the frustration they can cause consumers.

He went on to complain of format-related problems in the areas of music and video. “I remember being told how great DVDs were supposed to be for vidheads; now I hear that high-def means the stuff I have is about to become second-rate. I just hate that stuff.”

Yes! The S word–stability–is much of what the OpenReader Consortium is all about. No computer format can definitely be the same 50 years from now, but at the very least formats should evolve gracefully and in a way that protects book buyers, including libraries. The OpenReader Consortium approach, ideally carried out with the cooperation of archive-oriented librarians, focusing on preservation and future access for ordinary readers and academics alike, is the only way to go.