Week 16 Prompt

This week's readings were interesting and thought provoking for me. While I read on my Kindle for pleasure, and computer for work or school, I still am slightly annoyed by doing so. To me there is something soothing about holding a printed book. Nostalgia? Possibly. I also think that even with a Kindle, there is always knowing that I can check my email, go shopping, check Twitter, read the newspaper, etc. on it instead of reading the book. Having a printed book doesn't offer those distractions when it is in my hands. And if I do find myself distracted, well, I have forced myself to stop wasting my time and quit reading it.

The best part of working at a library, to me, are the books. Whether I am selfishly grabbing some for myself, or helping someone find a book, it's always been a main source of enjoyment and satisfaction for me. I have always liked to read, although I started reading like a maniac after I had my first kid. I would go to the library or used bookstore, grab a bunch, then after putting her down for the night - read like a fiend. It was a cheap and easy way to be entertained (we were very young and poor, now I am older and still somewhat poor). It became an ingrained habit and now? I don't know what I would do without books. So regardless of the format, even though I will probably always prefer a physical book, I will keep reading. 

I do see electronic books to be the main way people will read in the future. I have seen it already with my kid's text books. More than half of their books are on their laptops given out by the school with worksheets and tests done online, while the others are physical books - even though most of those assignments are online, too. We have already been informed that the school is putting in another book on the computers for next year. So out of the 7 classes, only two will be in physical form. I do think it makes sense for academics to do most of their work electronically, they do go through a lot of paper! BUT with at least one printed version. It just seems to me that having everything in an electronic format is folly and a ridiculous form of hubris. I also find it a bit odd that someone would say that printed books are more damaging to the planet. I am not saying that they do not, what I find odd is - what these people think happens to old tablets? Not everyone is so environmentally friendly and having computer components that seep poison into a landfill certainly isn't any better than cutting down trees. (If anyone has any facts regarding this one way or another, I would be curious to know.)

However, I do not think that traditional publishing will stop anytime in the near future. The way the publishing industry is intertwined with (or owned by) corporate powerhouses makes it unlikely that they will let it happen anytime soon. There are too many people that will lose out and have an invested stake in traditional publishing. The other issue that Ursula Le Guin mentioned was that if publishing houses keeps expecting huge profits, midlist authors may get cut out and new authors are unlikely to be picked up. These authors are still going to write - they may just have to self-publish. Hopefully, they will pay to have a professional editor because that is part of the problem of many of the books in the self-publishing industry today, and they are gods awful books because of not doing so. Or they may have to do what Sarah Monette had to do as she explains in the second question to get a contract. http://www.mybookishways.com/2014/04/interview-giveaway-katherine-addison-author-of-the-goblin-emperor.html  (It was a great book, btw!)

I thoroughly enjoyed taking this class, have learned a bunch and am now in charge of all the RA work at my branch! Eek! Congratulations and good luck to those of you who are graduating! As this is my first semester I will be seeing some of you in other classes. Have a great summer if you are taking a break!