friday 5: books

[archersangel]

1. Are books losing importance as a source of information and entertainment?
probably as a source of info. when 80% of what you want to know is on-line. unless it's a bio on someone or some big exposé on something.

2. Are e-books the death of paper books? Will paper books disappear?
paper books will always be around. because not everyone like a tablet/e-reader or they don't work well in certain light conditions. and there will always be some paperbacks at airport gift shops for people to grab to read on the plane.

3. Should libraries focus on improving their technological resources rather than building a larger collection of paper books?
it should be 50/50, or at least 60/40 in favor of technological resources. because of the first part of my answer above.

4. How important are early reading skills in a child’s academic performance?
fairly important. but you don't want to push the kid too hard. like trying to have them read 1^st grade level books at 4 years old.

5. Are people who spend a lot of time reading fiction wasting their time which could be better spent doing more useful activities?
remove "reading fiction" and replace it with any other hobby; woodworking, knitting, cross-stitching, photography, painting, baking, etc. & then ask the question.
if it's something to help a person relax, and is not illegal or hurting anyone, it doesn't matter.

see other answers over here.

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I've been around quite long enough to have watched some very valuable online resources in my field disappear one way or another. One major one has been restored in a new form; one is giving a kind of make-do access; but several seem to be done for good, some lost to hacking (which the people involved don't have time to repair), and some because the creators died or don't have the ability to move them to a new platform. Print books, and even microfiche and microfilm, are still readable. An individual library may lose its copy, but print interlibrary loan is still very valuable.

I use ebooks a lot in my work, less for fun. The insidious thing about ebooks is that libraries can't share them through ILL. So some new books are virtually inaccessible, because they were expensive and most libraries that bought them apparently have only electronic copies. This makes me very unhappy.

And I will fight anyone who thinks reading are wasting their time! Do people really think that? I guess if they asked it in the Friday Five, some people must, but I don't know if any of them are my friends!