eBooks and the Vanishing Concept of the Page

By Deane Barker • • 1 min read •
AI Summary

This post explores how the rise of eBooks is altering our perception of the page, emphasizing the transition from fixed layouts to fluid content. The author discusses the implications for reading experiences and design, highlighting the challenges and opportunities presented by digital formats.

How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write: this entire article is an interesting look into how e-books and Google’s digitization efforts will change how we read. But this section stuck out at me – in the digital world, the concept of “pages” breaks down.

One geeky side note here: Before we can get too far in this new world, we need to have a technological standard for organizing digital books. We have the Web today because back in the early 1990s we agreed on a standard, machine-readable way of describing the location of a page: the URL.

But what’s the equivalent for books? For centuries, we’ve had an explicit system for organizing print books in the form of page numbers and bibliographic info. All of that breaks down in this new digital world. The Kindle doesn’t even have page numbers – it has an entirely new system called “locations” because the pagination changes constantly based on the type size you choose to read. If you want to write a comment about page 32 of “On Beauty,” what do you link to? The Kindle location? The Google Book Search page? This sounds like a question only a librarian would get excited about, but the truth is, until we figure out a standardized way to link to individual pages – so that all the data associated with a specific passage from “On Beauty” point to the same location – books are going to remain orphans in this new world.

The entire article is a great, futurist look into how books are changing, and what the future might hold.

Consider this passage:

For nonfiction and short-story collections, a la carte pricing will emerge, as it has in the marketplace for digital music. Readers will have the option to purchase a chapter for 99 cents, the same way they now buy an individual song on iTunes. The marketplace will start to reward modular books that can be intelligibly split into standalone chapters.

Shades of my request that authors write shorter books.

Links to this – The Future of the Librarian: Information Architecture and Literacy May 28, 2011
I’ve often wondered, what does the post-library era look like? Let’s face it, though there will be a long tail, the era of the bound wood pulp is coming to an end ( Amazon certainly thinks so ). Without books, what do librarians do? I’ve long-thought that the post-library librarian is really an...
Links to this – The Book Itself: Four Thoughts on the Enduring Value of the Printed Book November 15, 2016
The book itself matters. Beyond the practicalities it offers over ebooks, the printed book carries with it intangible characteristics that we take for granted and wouldn't miss until long after their absence.
Links from this – Authors: Write Shorter Books July 5, 2008
Is comprehensive-ness a point for, or a point against, a technical book? I used it think it was an advantage – the bigger, the better – but as I get busier and my company accelerates, it’s increasingly a liability. I’ve started to be greatly attracted to smaller books – or thinner books, more...