John C. Dvorak on ebooks

In his 4/21/11 post "The End of the Printed Book?" Dvorak seems to agree with me:  ("I don't like the idea that the printed book might be killed off by a combination of the Kindle and the iPad, but I think, on a short-term basis, we may see what looks like a trend in this direction.")

But he also points out a couple caveats about the move from printed to digital books:  1) We really don't know whether or how we perceive and retain information differently between the two formats, and  2) ebooks don't have any "collectors' value" as printed books do.


Re. the latter, I don't for a moment believe all print books are going to disappear, or even that publishing of new ones will cease altogether.  There will always be (well, "always" is a very long time) people who collect printed books and thus have a personal print library, and I suspect that even after it is no longer profitable for publishers to publish new books in print, print-on-demand will be in place to allow those few who wish and can afford to purchase them in print to be able to.