The video won’t embed, so here’s the transcript from Big Think:
Question: How are eBooks changing the way we consume books and media?
Margaret Atwood: Well eBooks are another method of text delivery. And I did run a… I ran a blog on this subject sometime ago and it was called “Three Reasons for Keeping Paper Books.” And the three reasons were: solar flares which would wipe out communications, towers, and also any electronic media that you might happen to have stored. Grid overload resulting in brown-outs which would have similar effects. And internet overload. Unless people are going to build the grid out more, going to build the net out more, There’s pretty soon not going to have much space on it because of all the spam and porn to the percentage of 95, I’m told. So it’s very crowded out there.
So building out the net, building out the grid and what are you going to do about the solar flares. Well I guess a lead-lined box is about the best you can do. All of these things point out the fact that electronic storage is pretty fragile. If you want to keep something permanently, you should probably keep it in paper form and that is why an e-version of your Will is not acceptable. Another reason is it’s very hackable and forgeable. As I said, the net is leaky. And a number of other legal documents, which of course drives people crazy because those paper things take up so much room. So it’s a problem facing businesses, what to do with the paper? What is the alternative to paper? When can you use e-storage, etc.? It’s also a problem for people, for instance, with small apartments who like to read, where are they going to put all the books?
The e-reader gives you portability, it gives you instant accessibility and it gives you the possibility of having whole bunch of books with you at once on this little device. So for that, it’s very, very handy. Those are the pluses.
I personally think it’s going to increase reading because you can acquire a book very quickly. You don’t have to wait, you can just push the button and it’s there. If you really like it and want to keep it, you may then go get a paper version. It does remove the element of serendipity, by which I mean, you walk into a bookstore with the idea of getting this book and you see three or four other books that you really feel you must have, but you wouldn’t have known about them unless you run into the store. So how to create in an e-version that experience of serendipity. It’s really hard.
So people are thinking about this a lot the other virtue of the e-reader may be that it’s helpful for kids who are having reading problems because they an isolate blocks of text and make the letters bigger. So it makes it more visible. They can see it better, maybe. I don’t think they’ve done the studies on that yet, but it’s being talked about.
Recorded 9/21/2010
Interviewed by Max Miller
“It does remove the element of serendipity, by which I mean, you walk into a bookstore with the idea of getting this book and you see three or four other books that you really feel you must have, but you wouldn’t have known about them unless you run into the store. So how to create in an e-version that experience of serendipity. It’s really hard.”
Happens to me all the time when I buy ebooks (or when I bought pbooks online for that matter).
An “internet overload”? She’s showing her age.
The fact that I have an ereader does not prevent me from going to the book store or the library or any other place where books are available for consumption, and therefore subject to serendipitous discovery. I’m not a shut-in, lady.
Plus, I always giggle a little when people use the “paper is permanent” argument.
It’s an odd point of view … worrying about solar flares when discussing e-books. But, there it is.
As for permanence, the entire 1890 US census was wiped out in a fire where it was being stored … on paper. And with no backup.
The solar flares thing was odd, but internet overload isn’t that bizarre. The major cost factors for server farms aren’t processors or disks, they’re electricity and heat dissipation. There are limits. Of course, there are limits to paper books, too – it takes wood and power and lots of water to produce paper.
But at least she wasn’t instantly dismissive of ebooks like so many authors have been. And besides, she’s a great goalie! (Search for margaret atwood goalie in youtube.)
The solar flare thing just tells us she recently saw a documentary on the “coming” Magnetic Superstorm. History Channel ran it in the US back in July.
Great fodder for luddites and survivalists; almost made me want to buy a cistern, a gas-powered generator, and a honking big gas tank. 😉
I’ve had far more serendipity with ebooks than I ever did with physical books. Every free book and review on a book blog leads to more discoveries.
Every time I order a book at Amazon, the thank you page has suggestions for related reading. The Bestseller lists are another great source. I can just browse at Amazon in a myriad of ways, price, genre, author, title, something you can’t really do as well in a bookstore. Bookstores are strictly by genre, then author. What if you’re not sure of the genre? What if you don’t remember the author? Yes, you can ask, then the clerk looks it up, the same way you can look it up yourself at Amazon.
I still love bookstores, but I read far more and far more diversely than I did without my Kindle.
My favorite bookstore website is Powell’s – they always recommend something good. Amazon is pretty spot-on as well. Borders, not so much (I was ready to punch them when they kept emailing me about Sarah Palin’s book.)
Still, at least where I live, bricks-and-mortar bookstores offer up a heaping pile of serendipity. I can’t walk into a couple of the better ones in my town and get past their display tables without buying something. Maybe it depends on who is picking the books.
Statistically, you are more likely to burn your house down (with all those paper books) than you are going to have a massive solar flare that destroys your ebooks. Besides, if a solar flare destroys my books, I am going to be more worried about surviving the apocalypse that follows than my book collection.