Bringing books closer to the underprivileged
by C:F Team on 20th August, 2010 at 1:36 PM CEST
Books are the enablers of human minds. They can move us, educate us and change us in powerful ways. In this day and age, there are still vast amount of people living in under-developed areas with no access to books or the knowledge within them. In this weekly hot topic, we want to take a quick look at the future trends of books and ask:
What kind of impact do you believe the evolution of books will bring for the underprivileged?
Evolution of Books
Books are evolving away from their paper-y past. Did you know that Amazon predicts that it will sell more e-books than paperbacks by the end of next year, and the sales of e-books will be more than paperbacks and hardcover combined shortly thereafter (http://mashable.com/2010/07/29/amazon-e-books-paperbacks/)? Electronic books have many advantages over convention books since they are more portable, less expensive, easier to publish and much simpler to store.
New Generation of Books (e-books) in Action
How can we use the benefits of e-books for the betterment of the developing world? Worldreader initiative aims to bring a library of books in the hands of children and families using e-reader technology and e-books. Another example of e-books in action is the Gutenberg project, a database of 33,000 free e-books for open sharing.
The Future Book
Speaking of open sharing of books, you must have already heard that Challenge:Future has our little reading project as well - The Future Book! Over the past couple of months we were busy collecting very inspiring snippets of thought from all of C:F community. And today we are happy to announce that The Future Book is on the verge of being born! This book not only echoes the voice of youths around the world, but also represents the vision and dreams for the future. The electronic version of The Future Book will make its debut on our platform next week (Aug 26, 2010), so make sure to check back in with us next week!
For now, leaving a comment below and tell us your opinion on whether e-books can help the spread of books to the underprivileged and aid the open-sharing of knowledge.
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Faisal Tahir
I think while its true that the book is evolving, we must not overstate the impact and the magnitude of the change. If you analyze the market closely you would discover that a hardback is still considered the premium most sought after experience and increasing the best e-book readers are those which can replicate that experience.
That said, in this moment of time, i would prefer e-version for most of the books i read and would prefer a device like the new Kindle to read them on. Technology makes the reading experience far more satisfying that it ever was with bookmarking, searching and referencing.
Furthermore, it would allow the publishers to break into the e-market as it is increasingly feared that the concept of physical books will be replaced by laptops and projectors in the coming decades (and in some cases it already has).
3rd September, 2010 @ 10:07 AM CEST