Submitted by Rowland Jones, Dec 8, 2006 03:27

re Ironically, you can interact far more easily with a paper book, using a pencil or just dog-earing a corner of a page, than you can with the cuttingedge Sony Reader. Yes that's absolutely right: I am no Luddite ( i'm e-mailing you, aren't I?) but I am a believer in appropriate technology. The use of pen and paper can never be replaced as a pleasureable tactile activity by typing on my Powerbook. However the other issue for me and one that is probably more important in some ways, is that of storage. We have used floppy discs, Zip disks, CD, DVD, and USB keys: and this will continue to change. How many of us have vinyl collecting dust in the attic? The type of storage medium in use changes rapidly in computing and if we do bother to update we edit out material. What would have happened if Da Vinci had used the Renaissance equivalent of floppies: would we now be enjoying his sketch books? If we were very lucky, only in edited form. Yes I know we're not all Da VInci but what about the material that we write that may be of interest to our families, and even historians? Photographic historians are already concerned at the fact that people are deleting old files rather than keeping them for posterity. The other aspect of books versus book readers is the social element: I have books given to me by friends; books thta belonged to my father, and great grand father: they have a meaning for me. a text file for a birthday present from a loved one? Will we leave our collection of text files to our family? I think not. The book is dead? Long Live the book! Rowland Jones Manchester UK www.reallyaccessiblememory.com

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