I remember about fourteen years or so, ago as a member of my institution’s senate library committee when a fellow colleague of mine suggested, rather strongly, the need for our university to stop the subscriptions to print-journals, and switch instead to e-journals. For the most part, the committee voted in favor of that move. So, today most of our journal subscriptions are online. The university must have saved a lot of money by this action, and we were able to expand on our “volumes,” which now obviously has a different meaning from the classical meaning that library “volumes” has. Because my visits to the physical library were mostly to read journals in those days, I can count in my fingers the number of times I have visited the library since the past decade. This is obviously an evolution.
In line with the emergence of e-journals was this whole idea of online publishing of books. A few brick and mortar bookstores in the U.S. and perhaps around the more developed world became the casualty of the move to online publishing, as readers exploited the lower cost (at the time) and the convenience that came with online access of publications. So, naturally, the business for e-readers, those gadgets that enable you to upload and display online publications (book, magazines, newspapers, and so on) in friendly interface went up dramatically.
This column in Daily Trust took notice in the several articles that appeared in it during the heydays of e-readers, which would be in the 2010 through 2013 time frame. An article in this column on 9 January 2012 compared a few of the popular e-readers of the time. E-reader models in the market then include those manufactured by Asus, Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, HP, Kobo, Samsung, Sony, and many more. However, the comparison exercise was restricted to those gadgets that seemed to be getting the headlines at the time, based on their low price-to-performance ratios: iPad 2 (Apple), Kindle Fire (Amazon), and Kobo (Kobo, Inc.).
In the classroom – even at the Secondary School level; remember opon imo in Ondo State? – some transition from paper textbooks to electronic ones that are accessible through e-readers took place, to take advantage of the benefits, such as compactness, or the ability to “pack” hundreds or even thousands of books into a gadget the size of a twenty-page 2A Exercise Book. The e-readers also allow the display of audio and video materials and interactive diagrams. After the initial device cost, the prediction was that the cost of titles would be very cheap in deed, when compared to print-books. However, e-readers also come with a few challenges, such as those related to ease-of-use, textbook availability, lack of standards, the learning curve, Intellectual Property (IP) issues, the issue of publisher margin, and requisition models especially in poor countries.
Take a look at the issue of ease-of-use, as an example of the challenges. As pointed out in the 5 March 2012 article in this column, minimum infrastructure requirements are needed in order to read print materials, while we do need electricity for e-readers. Also, digital devices are more cumbersome to use: skimming through an electronic book is harder to do, so are marking, highlighting, and making notes in the books. There are also issues such as in-flight restrictions – you cannot read during flight take-off or landing! Reading e-books connected to power outlets while lying on your back might also pose some ergonomic, if not safety, challenges.
Incidentally, the ease-of-use factors are probably going to determine the ultimate fate of e-readers. I remember a few years ago when Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft said something to the effect that he prefers his books in print form. I do too, as much as I like technology; and my preference derives from the ease-of-use factors. In informal surveys of young college students, the conclusion is that print-books will never be supplanted by e-books. In fact, a significant portion of students print their e-books in hardcopy form for serious studying. (This also applies to me, by the way.)
Beyond the hype, where are we today with e-readers? This is the situation for me: for light reading – magazines, newspapers, novels, and so on – e-books are okay. However, for serious studying and immersive experience, it will be hard to beat print-books. Also, I feel more relaxed with print-books because I do not have to think about losing battery power or the Internet, or staring at a “glass” surface, not to mention the relatively immense difficulty in annotating.
Apparently, many people share these concerns, explaining the apparent significant reversal to print publications. A New York Times article as far back as 22 September 2015 reported signs that “some e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper.” Suggested reasons for declining rate of e-book adoption include the rising cost of e-books and “digital fatigue,” a reference to the fact that we already spend too much time staring at screens, prompting us to want to be offline.
In conclusion, print-books are not going anywhere, while e-books have also come to stay! The balance will probably be determined by the relative number of people engaging in studying.
