But Ben Boyd, vice president of communications at Barnes and Noble, which sells titles electronically on its Web site, points out that collecting books on a hard drive doesn't carry the same cachet as a stacked bookshelf. The tangible, smelling, touching sensation of reading is not going to be replaced. Sachs agrees, predicting that, while paper books will retain a presence, digital pages are here to stay. The electronic-book publishing industry accounts for a small fraction of that. Indeed, an electronic format has advantages.
Users can search text, look up words, read better in the dark, and bookmark pages.
Users say it's easier to read with an e-book than off a computer screen, costs less, and has a more comfortable shape. The history of media is that more forms come along, but nothing gets replaced. He points out that different e-books use different, competing encryption standards and prices are too high for the mainstream. Joanne Fritz of Albany, N.Y., who is shopping at Doubleday Books in Boston, agrees. But E-Ink Corp. in Cambridge, Mass., claims to have a solution to digital animosity.