I am honestly not sure that all books should be electronic. I’m a gadget guy but some part of me feels that if we make everything digital that one day someone will accidentally kick out the plug and EVERYTHING will be gone. I do see the convenience and the immediacy that an eBook provides. It’s similar to the evolution of music as well.
When I grew up, the LP or record album was king. I had contests with my friends to see who could fill more wine boxes with albums. We tried to research and purchase the best turntable for the money, belt drive vs. direct drive, type of high-end needle, etc. How the arm was attached to the record player was important too. Some said that if the arm swung across the LP, it caused unnecessary strain on the needle so the arm should be attached to the cover and track directly across instead. I bought crazy cone-shaped feet for my record player to minimize the vibration. It was a science to get the music vibration-free and sounding crystal clear.
When CD’s came along, many music purist were up in arms. They felt that the music coming from a CD lacked warmth and feeling and that CD-quality music was sterile and cold. But it still intrigued me. I searched for CDs that had “DDD” on the back or “ADD” or even “AAD”. The “D” stood for “digital” and the “A” stood for “Analog”. The first position was for recording (digital or analog), the second position mastering (or remastering) and the third was the format (e.g., CD = digital, LP = analog). After time, I seldom lugged all of my albums everywhere I went. You could play CD’s in the car and you could store a lot more CDs in a box than albums. While I still have 2 cases of wine boxes filled with my old LPs in the garage, I haven’t played them in ages.
I now debate whether I buy a CD to have the physical box and insert or just buy the album off of Amazon or iTunes. I have been tending to just get the digital version and not worry about the storage of the CD (although I have been know to immediately burn the CD of any MP3 album I buy, just to be able to play it in the car).
{ 6 comments }
