Barnes and Noble Slumps

Welcome to the emotions and questions of music collectors. I have gone through many phases of this with vinyl.
 
With electronic readers becoming more and more popoular, you may be right. I read somewhere that schools (both HS and universities) were looking to go to electronic readers in the future for convenience and to save paper.

Imagine instead of walking down to the Co-Op, buying all your books for the semester, then hauling them back to your dorm/apt/car/bus stop/etc..., you just log onto whatever site UT has set up and download all of the material onto a Kindle or similar device in about 10 min.
 
I hate reading technical books online. I have a hard time believing electronic readers will replace medical books. However, I could easily see that it will supplement, whereby professionals use it for non-essential books but continue to purchase essential books.
 
If you can wait a month or so after a new hardback is published Half.com is your friend!
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You can just about find any book published on half.com
 
You are probably right. My middle school son already doesn't get textbooks from his public school so we had to purchase them online. If they offered the books on Kindle, it would actually be an improvement. In fact, I should look into it.

Makes me feel old...

Seattle or anyone, is reading on Kindle better than on computer? If so, why?
 
Maybe I'm going backward, but I have actually been pulling books from the local library lately instead of buying. Started with my daughter getting the "Reading Counts" books for school and my wife asked why I was dropping cash for books that I read and then throw on the shelf when she was going to the library every other week and she could pick one up for me.
 
Can you view color images on a Kindle? Basically, I'm wondering how it would handle a Pathology or Histology book or art book.
 
I love books, and it's as much about the experience of reading as it is the content. I don't foresee anything electronic replacing the enjoyment of holding a book in my hands.
 
Dionysius, agreed. There is a tactile element to pleasure reading that I demand.

I imagine there is room for both.
 
I was part of a research group at Penn State that evaluated the effectiveness of an E Reader in an academic setting. At first, I thought it would be great, but as the semester went on I realized how limited the technology was. "Flipping" between pages in the midst of a discussion was absolutely impossible, as was effective annotating, underlining, etc.

I don't think I would do any serious reading on a reader again, but I tell you what I would use it for: .pdfs of documents. I'm constantly printing off articles and carrying them around, but being able to store and keep them on the reader was great. I thought about getting one for just this purpose, but decided to go with a netbook instead.
 
I have a Kindle and use it quite a bit. There are some books, most notably the bible, that are difficult to navigate efficiently.

But I do like it. Generally I read more often with it than I would without it. That said, you will still want a copy of your favorite books in physical form.
 
People have heralded the end of the book for a helluva long time, but it's a remarkably resilient piece of technology. We'll see.
 
I get my books from half.com or halfpricebooks, often from the clearance shelves. Half.com is funny because you can find books for 50cents, but it's $3-5 for shipping, still cheap, and hardbacks are as cheap as paperbacks. I haven't paid retail for a book in several years. Barnes and Nobles may die, but you'll still see used stores
 
If people only purchase books used, then the publishers are going to go out of business and then the used book market will dry up as well.
 
Sorry, let me clarify. People will buy still buy new books, just not from solid stores; they'll go online.
 
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