I haven't posted yet about e-books and the new digital wave of media...because I've been taking my time fully exploring it. I'm nowhere near done exploring everything that's out there, but I've definitely played with enough new technology (including my new Nook Color!) to have a well thought out, however brief, blog-able thought about it.
My initial impression is that the new digital media is as convenient as it can be occasionally frustrating. Reading an e-book was like having a digital bookmark--always saving my page--with a built in night light (I often find myself reading just before bedtime). Books and magazines for it cost little and come in vivid digital, finger flip-able colored pages. It scours the internet at my will and it even came with the highly addictive Angry Birds!
The frustrating part comes in when I, as a librarian, don't want to buy a book I'm only going to read once and it simply isn't available for free from Overdrive. This may not be a huge issue for many readers with less picky tastes than me, but four years as an English major and two years as a grad student have left my brain a sharp instrument that picks apart any poorly written thing. I currently have 101 books on my Goodreads to-read list and they are all interesting and sound wonderful, but less than 10 are available from Overdrive (and that's the NYPL catalog). I am, at least, extremely appreciative that the Nook supports ePub format rather than embedding its content only for its own company to profit (yes Apple and Amazon Kindle I am talking about you).
Yet, I still don't think books will go out of fashion for a long time. They are relatively cheap and don't require electricity or the purchase of a specific device. There is something satisfying when you pick them up. You can feel the weight in your hands, but not the physical weight so much as the mental and creative impact of the characters, plots, and ideas contained within them. As an information container, we still feel an affinity toward them that we can't exactly match with any technology.
I love my Nook but I also love my book shelf and all the hours of enlightenment and entertainment it holds. Like most people I want everything--the old and the new--and I won't relinquish either yet.
