After reading several articles on digital media and about Kindles and their pros and cons I was thinking to myself about print publishing. In the last few years publishing seems to have opened up more and more and become more assessable to the general public with the introduction of self publishing websites such as ( http://www.authorsonline.co.uk/) and e-book readers like the Kindle.
All of the power is no longer held by the big publishers, with a close friend of mine printing her own book ‘Bringing Home the Stars’ by Jennifer Kirk last year which is still selling in bookshops nationwide very successfully I may add! She also mentioned to me that the Kindle edition of the book has been selling just as well as her printed books. This begs the question can the two live side by side?

Lets examine the Kindle and its pros and its cons first

Pros

• It’s small
• It can hold hundreds of books
• Its battery lasts for a very long time
• You can read both books from the kindle store and from pdf format
• You can read a paper or magazine
• Its lightweight
• It saves space
• You can check your emails and browse the web (via the experimental section of the Kindle)
• It has a text to speech feature
• It can play mp3s
• You can change the typeface

Cons

• It needs to be charged
• Its not water proof (so no reading in the bath ladies and gents)
• It doesn’t have a back light so if you have no light you can’t read anything on it
• Its a set screen size
• Its black and white (so no lovely colour spreads)
• You can’t do a double page spread on the kindle
• You cant quickly flick though the pages
• You can change the typeface
• It doesn’t display pictures well
• You can’t sign a kindle book

Printed books/ magazines

Pros

• It has an individual physical presence e.g weight texture and smell of its own
• Its been printed the publishers directions
• You can quickly flick through it
• It can look nice on a coffee table
• It can nearly been any shape or size
• Its printed on paper the publisher chose
• Its printed in the font the publisher decided to use
• The type can not be changed
• They look nice on shelves in your library or home
• The author can sign your book

Cons

• They take up space not every one can have a home library
• Books can decompose or get damaged
• You can’t change the typeface
• Books can’t read to you
• They can be heavy (Imagen carrying round a dictionary every where with you)
• If you lose a book you have to buy a new copy
• Books can cost a lot of money
• Notes made in books are there to stay

Now obviously some of these apply to both books and magazines and kindles or other e-reader devices respectively.

Kindles and books both have there places but I believe as more people live in smaller homes and I’ve lived in some small homes where space is at a premium so in these conditions things like the kindle save space.

However there is something to be said of sitting down with a good book or leafing through a magazine. One thing I do wonder is 10 years from now will book be seen as an item akin to the vinyl record which is now still here but more of a specialist item. what will this mean for libraries?

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