Survey about e-readers

[Uva]

At the University of Valladolid (Department of Business and Marketing) we are conducting a survey to find out what advantages people see in electronic books and other similar reading devices (e-readers or i-Pads). We are keen to know what you think, and would be grateful if you could fill out the following questionnaire.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF E-BOOKS, E-READERS OR IPADS? http://bit.ly/HnGS84

This research is not for business purposes and any information provided will be treated anonymously and for purely academic purposes.

[mal4mac]

I'm still wavering about buying a Kindle. Being able to get difficult-to-find classics for free is a big plus point for me - for instance, all of Chekhov's short stories as translated by Garnet. (They are available in an expensive paperback set - but that's the price of a Kindle!) But with a good public library nearby, do I really need one? Do I need 'complete Chekhov' that much?

[Charles Darnay]

I've found that Kindle hasn't been great with "hard-to-find" classics. You can get the major ones for for free, which I suppose is a plus, but the layout is often too atrocious to do anything with. Kindle does have the best selection of any of the e-readers I have looked into - but no better than a good bookstore or library.

[Kafka's Crow]

Why is an 'eReader' translated as 'Kindle' which is an over-priced product with no extra features and nothing that other (cheaper) eReaders can't do. This Kindle-mania will only give Amazon a monopoly over the ebook market which will be a bad thing for every one concerned. I would not trust a company with my library with this on their record:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Same goes for Sony who have this on their record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

I recently bought a Kobo Touch for less than half the price of a Kindle Touch and I am perfectly happy with it. Free classics are available on all eReaders, I don't know why Amazon make such a big deal out of it:
http://www.staples.co.uk/SearchEngine-kobo+touch

[Charles Darnay]

I have found the Kindle's selection better than Kobo's. Also, I think Kindle is more globally available, but I cannot confirm this.

Either way, none of them compare to the ink and paper so I don't know why I spend the time trying to defend eReaders.

[JBI]

Why is an 'eReader' translated as 'Kindle' which is an over-priced product with no extra features and nothing that other (cheaper) eReaders can't do. This Kindle-mania will only give Amazon a monopoly over the ebook market which will be a bad thing for every one concerned. I would not trust a company with my library with this on their record:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Same goes for Sony who have this on their record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

I recently bought a Kobo Touch for less than half the price of a Kindle Touch and I am perfectly happy with it. Free classics are available on all eReaders, I don't know why Amazon make such a big deal out of it:
http://www.staples.co.uk/SearchEngine-kobo+touch

In terms of hardware, Sony stuff is as pricey as Kindle, I would imagine. The hardware on the kindle isn't too shabby, and, as they still let you sideload anything you want onto it using Calibre, it becomes an infinite resource of public-domain and stolen ebooks.

My real quibble is not with the monopoly, but rather that the god damn thing does not handle other languages. I want to read my Chinese collections in a normal way, but the only way to get them on there is in small print pdf formart, which is so difficult to read.

I guess I will just buy a cheap knockoff when I head back to China, or in Taiwan, which will do the same thing, and allow me to get the other things I want. Still, you would think they would let the world go international with the product, but no. Nothing. They use the device only to market crappy romance novels at the least interested reader.

As for the Kobo, that looks to be roughly the same price as the Kindle in the States (they do not sell Kindle's for the normal price in Canada, only Kobos for slightly more than you seem to get off of Staples). Still, they do virtually the same thing, I wouldn't be surprised if they merge eventually.

As a Canadian, I applaud the use of Kobos, except for the fact that they overcharge us for them in Canada, making buying a Kindle over the border cheaper than buying a local product. Tsk tsk. I smell Collusion.

[kiki1982]

Well, I didn't know that about Chinese yet. That's annoying.

For me, there is no real disadvantage or advantage to it, apart from the fact that I like the feel of a real book. Nice and romantic :).
But, as long as electronic technology is not permanent, I regard a paper book as an investment. Even if it is not cheap (price is one of the reasons why I read English instead of Dutch, my mother tongue), fifty years on, I will still be able to access it, provided my house doesn't burn down, there isn't a flood or I don't lose it.
If I upload an electronic book on such an electronic device, there is a good chance that it is either out of date or that it is no longer accessible due to degradation.

So no e-readers for me yet.

[Paulclem]

Well, I didn't know that about Chinese yet. That's annoying.

For me, there is no real disadvantage or advantage to it, apart from the fact that I like the feel of a real book. Nice and romantic :).
But, as long as electronic technology is not permanent, I regard a paper book as an investment. Even if it is not cheap (price is one of the reasons why I read English instead of Dutch, my mother tongue), fifty years on, I will still be able to access it, provided my house doesn't burn down, there isn't a flood or I don't lose it.
If I upload an electronic book on such an electronic device, there is a good chance that it is either out of date or that it is no longer accessible due to degradation.

So no e-readers for me yet.

With the Kindle your books are held on your Amazon account, and so they are still available if your Kindle breaks or is stolen.

[kiki1982]

Oh, of course, otherwise you could take a back-up anyway, but my point was that in fifty years that Kindle book is no longer available because it is too old. The paper one is still standing on the bookshelf with all the letters in it. (although I have heard that the new paper is not as good anymore as the one before, something to do with chlorine?)

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I like them. I've had Sony reader, Kimdles, and now I mainly use my iPad. I have a different main reason, though--I'm disabled, and part of my disability is with my hands; they're deformed. Because of this it can be difficult to read big heavy books, especially when the binding is tight. Plus, I like being able to look up the definition of a word by tapping it. And, with an iPad, Wikipedia is only seconds away if I need to looks something up.

Still, I still love regular books. I like the whole paper thing. It's weird, but the experience between reading an ereader (whether backlit or not) and an actual book is different--reading a book feels somehow purer.


I've found that Kindle hasn't been great with "hard-to-find" classics. You can get the major ones for for free, which I suppose is a plus, but the layout is often too atrocious to do anything with.
Yep, this is unfortunately true. If you're okay with line breaks within paragraphs and numerous typos, they're fine. If that'll bother you, forget it. On top of that, sometimes classics are incorrect. For example, when I wanted to read Frankenstein, I learned from the reviews that what they have listed as the original version (there are two for Frankenstein, I can't remember the days) wasn't. I've also seen translations of foreign works that have whole sections deleted, Guy de Mauppasant's being the latest of which I ran across.

Why is an 'eReader' translated as 'Kindle' which is an over-priced product with no extra features and nothing that other (cheaper) eReaders can't do. This Kindle-mania will only give Amazon a monopoly over the ebook market which will be a bad thing for every one concerned. I would not trust a company with my library with this on their record:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Same goes for Sony who have this on their record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

I recently bought a Kobo Touch for less than half the price of a Kindle Touch and I am perfectly happy with it. Free classics are available on all eReaders, I don't know why Amazon make such a big deal out of it:
http://www.staples.co.uk/SearchEngine-kobo+touch
There's an ereader cheaper than the 100$ Kindle of the same quality screen?

The reasons why Kindle dominate are simple: the devices are cheaper but are still of a high quality, and they have the biggest selection.

[Charles Darnay]

Well, I didn't know that about Chinese yet. That's annoying.

For me, there is no real disadvantage or advantage to it, apart from the fact that I like the feel of a real book. Nice and romantic :).
But, as long as electronic technology is not permanent, I regard a paper book as an investment. Even if it is not cheap (price is one of the reasons why I read English instead of Dutch, my mother tongue), fifty years on, I will still be able to access it, provided my house doesn't burn down, there isn't a flood or I don't lose it.
If I upload an electronic book on such an electronic device, there is a good chance that it is either out of date or that it is no longer accessible due to degradation.

So no e-readers for me yet.

Umberto Eco makes this point in This is not the end of the book. You can read books printed hundreds of years ago if they have been kept properly, but digital formats change so rapidly. If you have a floppy disk with information on it - good luck accessing it today. ePub will unfortunately not last - it is very primitive compared to what will come. And when that happens, all your eBooks are gone.

If you are a book collector (of paper books) you are in complete control of your collection (as much as naturally possible.) With eBooks, you are basically loaning your books from Amazon, Apple, Sony &c. Once they go belly-up, your books go with them.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Umberto Eco makes this point in This is not the end of the book. You can read books printed hundreds of years ago if they have been kept properly, but digital formats change so rapidly. If you have a floppy disk with information on it - good luck accessing it today. ePub will unfortunately not last - it is very primitive compared to what will come. And when that happens, all your eBooks are gone.

If you are a book collector (of paper books) you are in complete control of your collection (as much as naturally possible.) With eBooks, you are basically loaning your books from Amazon, Apple, Sony &c. Once they go belly-up, your books go with them.
Yep, this is all true . . . and also troubling, because all physical media is going out the door. CDs are almost dead, DVDs and Blue Ray players will soon be a thing of the past. At least with MP3s you're downloading the information, so it can't be taken away from you (still, it's a digital file, much harder to preserve than a physical CD, though those will be useless in the future, too). Movies will most likely turn into a completely streamed medium, the Netflix library of movies is ever-growing and extremely popular. I think physical books will take a long time to go, but they will.

[JBI]

Yep, this is all true . . . and also troubling, because all physical media is going out the door. CDs are almost dead, DVDs and Blue Ray players will soon be a thing of the past. At least with MP3s you're downloading the information, so it can't be taken away from you (still, it's a digital file, much harder to preserve than a physical CD, though those will be useless in the future, too). Movies will most likely turn into a completely streamed medium, the Netflix library of movies is ever-growing and extremely popular. I think physical books will take a long time to go, but they will.

A Library can burn down, as was the case in much of the manuscript's history, or books can be forgotten, or destroyed, or decay from bad pulp. There is a myth that somehow digital is less stable, but it is so easy to burn books, that one must think the idea of the internet being taken down as less likely than a library of some grand size having a large-scale fire.

As for preservation, well, my digital records of text are still fine. When technology changes, likewise I will upgrade my text to be assessed in new formats - the same way books went from scroll to codex to printed books - I can change my library from text to pdf, to epub, to whatever.

The technology is only getting better - the emergence of CDs did not kill music, therefore I see no reason that something cannot take over. There will always be people who argue vinyl is better, but for most of us, even CDs are becoming things of the past.

Take a look at the VHS for instance. Who still releases new ones? The trend has been to convert movies into digital format, a form that is much more easily preserved. Entire archives will be converted.

The very way we access information is being reformatted. With it industry is being changed too.

North America, and the Western World in general is slower to pick up on it. Asia right now has excellent markets where books are bought and sold in serial format similar to the 19th century newspaper serials online. with it comes artists who need not go through major publishing, and can rely on their readers to go through their books for sales. Such direct contact and pay-per-word transactions put the text back where it should be.

Digitalization is not a bad thing. It is unavoidable. Print technology costs money, web hosting for documents is virtually free. A text file takes up virtually no room.

The ones who should be complaining are the major publishing firms, as they rely on inflating prices for profit. With all the free texts available, such a middle-man is no longer necessary. Authors will charge what they want, and publish online. They will be awarded cash for their work, and readers will have access from them. Amazon already makes more money in sales of electronic books (inflated in price, I might add) than they do in physical books.

I suspect eventually even the whole idea of buying books will become dated. Soon people will just get sponsorships from publishing in the form of advertisement grants. Youtube has already done that, and soon it will be the norm, I suspect. Charging for the book will become less realistic than charging for the space around or inside the book. I bet companies will even pay to have items promoted within books, as they pay to have merchandise sold within rap songs.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

A Library can burn down, as was the case in much of the manuscript's history, or books can be forgotten, or destroyed, or decay from bad pulp. There is a myth that somehow digital is less stable, but it is so easy to burn books, that one must think the idea of the internet being taken down as less likely than a library of some grand size having a large-scale fire.

As for preservation, well, my digital records of text are still fine. When technology changes, likewise I will upgrade my text to be assessed in new formats - the same way books went from scroll to codex to printed books - I can change my library from text to pdf, to epub, to whatever.

The technology is only getting better - the emergence of CDs did not kill music, therefore I see no reason that something cannot take over. There will always be people who argue vinyl is better, but for most of us, even CDs are becoming things of the past.

Take a look at the VHS for instance. Who still releases new ones? The trend has been to convert movies into digital format, a form that is much more easily preserved. Entire archives will be converted.

The very way we access information is being reformatted. With it industry is being changed too.

North America, and the Western World in general is slower to pick up on it. Asia right now has excellent markets where books are bought and sold in serial format similar to the 19th century newspaper serials online. with it comes artists who need not go through major publishing, and can rely on their readers to go through their books for sales. Such direct contact and pay-per-word transactions put the text back where it should be.

Digitalization is not a bad thing. It is unavoidable. Print technology costs money, web hosting for documents is virtually free. A text file takes up virtually no room.

The ones who should be complaining are the major publishing firms, as they rely on inflating prices for profit. With all the free texts available, such a middle-man is no longer necessary. Authors will charge what they want, and publish online. They will be awarded cash for their work, and readers will have access from them. Amazon already makes more money in sales of electronic books (inflated in price, I might add) than they do in physical books.

I suspect eventually even the whole idea of buying books will become dated. Soon people will just get sponsorships from publishing in the form of advertisement grants. Youtube has already done that, and soon it will be the norm, I suspect. Charging for the book will become less realistic than charging for the space around or inside the book. I bet companies will even pay to have items promoted within books, as they pay to have merchandise sold within rap songs.

I'm not arguing with any of that. I just like actually having something physical. I love that I have 33 GB of music on my computer, but I don't feel as connected with that as I do with the 500 or so CDs we have in the house.

Also, I didn't say media becoming digital was going to destroy music or literature or anything, really. All I'm saying is that the ownership isn't as secure. Soon everything we own will all be stored in 'The Cloud"--I suspect that in time even downloading things will become a thing of the past--we'll just buy the rights to stream something. There won't be any real "ownership" of anything, just like we see with Amazon and the Kindle. We buy the books to read, but we don't own them--Amazon can just decide to delete everyone's library if they so wished and no one could do a thing (I'm sure it's within their rights, written in small print somewhere it's not even visible unless you go looking for it), and it's probably the same with Apple and iTunes. I don't think this will happen, but I don't like the possibility that it could.

[Charles Darnay]

A Library can burn down, as was the case in much of the manuscript's history, or books can be forgotten, or destroyed, or decay from bad pulp. There is a myth that somehow digital is less stable, but it is so easy to burn books, that one must think the idea of the internet being taken down as less likely than a library of some grand size having a large-scale fire.


This is why I added the "as much as naturally possible" clause. I have suffered more computer crashes than library fires/flood/disasters (which is never).



As for preservation, well, my digital records of text are still fine. When technology changes, likewise I will upgrade my text to be assessed in new formats - the same way books went from scroll to codex to printed books - I can change my library from text to pdf, to epub, to whatever.

The technology is only getting better - the emergence of CDs did not kill music, therefore I see no reason that something cannot take over. There will always be people who argue vinyl is better, but for most of us, even CDs are becoming things of the past.

Take a look at the VHS for instance. Who still releases new ones? The trend has been to convert movies into digital format, a form that is much more easily preserved. Entire archives will be converted.

The very way we access information is being reformatted. With it industry is being changed too.

North America, and the Western World in general is slower to pick up on it. Asia right now has excellent markets where books are bought and sold in serial format similar to the 19th century newspaper serials online. with it comes artists who need not go through major publishing, and can rely on their readers to go through their books for sales. Such direct contact and pay-per-word transactions put the text back where it should be.

Digitalization is not a bad thing. It is unavoidable. Print technology costs money, web hosting for documents is virtually free. A text file takes up virtually no room.

The ones who should be complaining are the major publishing firms, as they rely on inflating prices for profit. With all the free texts available, such a middle-man is no longer necessary. Authors will charge what they want, and publish online. They will be awarded cash for their work, and readers will have access from them. Amazon already makes more money in sales of electronic books (inflated in price, I might add) than they do in physical books.

I suspect eventually even the whole idea of buying books will become dated. Soon people will just get sponsorships from publishing in the form of advertisement grants. Youtube has already done that, and soon it will be the norm, I suspect. Charging for the book will become less realistic than charging for the space around or inside the book. I bet companies will even pay to have items promoted within books, as they pay to have merchandise sold within rap songs.

All very true. But the problem is, in some cases, while the media manages to survive the shift in technology, your media does not. If you have a sizable VHS collection, you either have to make sure you have a suitable VCR or re-purchase the movies you want on DVD/Blue-Ray/Digital form. You will never have to re-purchase a book in order to use it if it has not suffered natural damage.

[IntravenousJava]

At the risk of sounding sappy, there has always been something mystical and sacred for me in turning the pages of a book, so I doubt I will ever abandon the medium unless forced.

I am, however, deeply disturbed at the decline in literacy over the past several decades, and therefore support any medium which can induce forthcoming generations to read.

[TurquoiseSunset]

Even though I love real books, browsing in book stores, my lovely overpopulated bookshelves, etc. I also love my Kindle (for all the reasons that has been mentioned on this forum a million times, so I won't repeat them). My last read was in paperback form and I really missed the dictionary lookup function. Obviously I can still look up words in a dicitionary, but because English is not my first language, I look up so many words it becomes very time consuming to flip through the dictionary every time I want to know the definition.

Also, I love being able to carry around a library in my handbag :)

[kiki1982]

About the video thing:

Unless you have played the tape too much so it is scratched to high heaven, worn and stretched or just broken in two (you can probably repair that though), you can still after twenty years put it in the machine and watch it.

Try that with a CD or DVD. If you have the machine to do it as it is not broken (purchasing a new one will be out of the question probably), the CD and DVD will have deteriorated. The tape or old fashioned film roll will happily provide you with more mirth and not even be too damaged colour-wise (it depends how you stored it). There are still colour films available from pre-WWII. I don't think much will be available from the digital era in 60-70 years.

Of course it will depend on how you stored it, but a CD that's twenty years old is detriorating.

Because of the more authentic sound quality, certain bands and music groups are now releasing vinyl records again and the record player is coming back into fashion amongst young fanatics.

[mal4mac]

I've found that Kindle hasn't been great with "hard-to-find" classics. You can get the major ones for for free, which I suppose is a plus, but the layout is often too atrocious to do anything with. Kindle does have the best selection of any of the e-readers I have looked into - but no better than a good bookstore or library.

That does worry me - I've glanced at some online and have not been overly impressed. If you can get properly edited Wordsworth classics, with notes, for £1.99, why bother with a Kindle? Also, I can give them to others after I've read them.

[mal4mac]

With the Kindle your books are held on your Amazon account, and so they are still available if your Kindle breaks or is stolen.

That assumes Amazon will survive fifty years! Or, what's to stop them deleting books or charging a "holding fee"?

[TheFifthElement]

An interesting article on the point :)

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/battery-powered-book-a-surprise-hit-2012051427055

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Even though I love real books, browsing in book stores, my lovely overpopulated bookshelves, etc. I also love my Kindle (for all the reasons that has been mentioned on this forum a million times, so I won't repeat them). My last read was in paperback form and I really missed the dictionary lookup function. Obviously I can still look up words in a dicitionary, but because English is not my first language, I look up so many words it becomes very time consuming to flip through the dictionary every time I want to know the definition.


Just download a free dictionary app on your cell phone; it's much easier . . . unless you don't have or don't use a cell phone that can do this, of course.

[mal4mac]

... I have heard that the new paper is not as good anymore as the one before, something to do with chlorine?)

What ISO standard are you referring to here? Is this for "permanent" or "archival" paper, or some lesser standard?

Sorry to get geeky, I've just been reading the Wikipedia page on acid-free paper :)

Just glancing at my bookshelf, the one's that are lasting as well as me (or better) say "printed on acid free paper" on the copyright page - usually hardbacks and university presses, not always much more expensive than paperbacks (e.g my Modern Library hardback "Basic Writings of Nietzsche" is lasting very well. Everyman hardbacks are also superb on price & quality.)

Penguin and Oxford World Classics paperbacks have always been notorious, because they have never been acid free. They have always faded quickly. I don't think the new ones are any better than the old (they couldn't be worse.) I sell them on as soon as I finish reading them, so I can still call them "Very Good" with a straight face...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So, what happens if the paper isn't "Acid Free," or low quality like the Penguin and Oxford World Classics (both of which I own for several)? Does it just turn yellow? That fine for me, honestly . . . I kind of like yellowed paper in old books.. My copy of The Illustrated Man from the 50s is pretty much canary.

Also, are all paperbacks made with non-acid free paper?

[kiki1982]

I think it's the acid free paper that detriorates more quickly, even in dry conditions. Although saying that that is taking into account the vast amount of years that non-acid free paper can exist (which is very very long).

I believe they have only introduced this in an industrial manner for the last 20-30 years.

[MorpheusSandman]

Right now I'd say my reading is about 80/20 Books/eBooks. The biggest problem with e-readers still are:

1. Formatting -- This is especially noticeable in poetry where often the line breaks and spacing are completely screwed up. I've practically given up on downloading and reading poetry. But there's also a problem with footnotes working right for many books. Penguin, eg, has been terrible about formatting properly, but Oxford has been better.

2. Availability -- When it comes to classics, especially, what version of a work you get (especially with translation, but also for scholarship and editing) is a major decision, and not all versions are available as e-books. Making it worse is that, on Amazon, especially, a lot of times very different versions are all shoved on the same page.

3. Price -- Why is it that most e-books are as expensive as their dead tree counterparts? If I have to pay several hundred dollars for the device, it seems silly then to pay the same for books that it cost no money for publishers to physically make.


I love that I have 33 GB of music on my computer, but I don't feel as connected with that as I do with the 500 or so CDs we have in the house. As someone with about 6TB of music and about 3000 CDs, I find that quite strange! I vastly prefer digital music to physical CDs as it's so much easier to search, find, play, replay, adjust, and the sound quality is better by virtue of not having to worry about distortion, noise, and jitter from the spinning discs.

[tonywalt]

To give you an idea about the sterility of ebooks (which is 80% of my book comsumption) I recently downloaded about 8,000 books of every kind - current, classic, biography, autobiographies on an on... and it was very anti-climatic. I felt virtually nothing. Odd. But techically speaking I now own a small town library. It should have made me happy for longer than 4 minutes.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

As someone with about 6TB of music and about 3000 CDs, I find that quite strange! I vastly prefer digital music to physical CDs as it's so much easier to search, find, play, replay, adjust, and the sound quality is better by virtue of not having to worry about distortion, noise, and jitter from the spinning discs.

Well, if I had 3000 CDs I'd probably feel the same.

But, wait a second, 6 terabytes of music? How much music do you have? 33 GB gives me about 4600 songs, and a lot of that is music isn't even mine, it's my dad's. I have a lot of long songs, so let's say 33 gigs get ones about 5500 songs . . . so that would be like a 100,000 songs. How can one even listen to all that? Plus, where do you get a computer with 6 TB of storage? You must have external hard drives coming out the whazoo.

[Paulclem]

That assumes Amazon will survive fifty years! Or, what's to stop them deleting books or charging a "holding fee"?

Well I won't be here in fifty years so...It really doesn't bother me though because I'm going to re-read 1% if that.

The thing with the kindle is it solves my piles problem. (Sorry I 've used that joke before).

I'm reading 3 books at the minute, two on the Kindle and one real book, with various ones in piles in the house in various stages of read-ness. The thing is, the piles have been getting bigger for years, and I have to keep shovelling the books into a charity bag and lug them down the town to get rid of of them.

I'd love to have the space and time to store and read and re-read, but:

always at my back I hear,
time's winged chariot hurrying near.

Plus my wife doesn't like my hoarding. She was the one who bought me the kindle.

Real books are fighting back though. Have you noticed the plush covers on the classics in the bookshops? Their anti-ebook strategy will be a winner, if you've got the cash. The books look great though.

[kiki1982]

So, what happens if the paper isn't "Acid Free," or low quality like the Penguin and Oxford World Classics (both of which I own for several)? Does it just turn yellow? That fine for me, honestly . . . I kind of like yellowed paper in old books.. My copy of The Illustrated Man from the 50s is pretty much canary.

Also, are all paperbacks made with non-acid free paper?

I see I got the concept right, but applied it the other way round.

Since paper has come into use for printing books, it was mostly made of cotton rags. So copies of Swift for example last up to 500 years no problem. And that is in normal conditions. When books started to become a mass product (the early 19th (?) century), they started to look for alternatives and started to print on wood pulp. It's those that deteriorate faster than the cotton rag and the acid free.

First stage is they turn yellow and then it's all the way down to just falling apart.

In my defence, I am no physicist... :D

It probably got muddled in my brain by my father in the nineties going on abou the fact that books wouldn't last anymore... silly me...

@PaulC:

:lol: I can imagine that some people have an advantage with an ereader. I try to keep my piles problem under control by not reading too much at the same time. Thankfully my piles are located only in our library. (sounds posh, doesn't it :D)

[mal4mac]

Real books are fighting back though. Have you noticed the plush covers on the classics in the bookshops? Their anti-ebook strategy will be a winner, if you've got the cash. The books look great though.

I've noticed the opposite! I just bought a Norton paperback online and was very disappointed in the paper & print quality - not up to their previous standards. There is a Kindle version and my theory is they want us to buy the Kindle version - they can charge the same price and not have all the transportation and tree costs.

[mal4mac]

I think it's the acid free paper that detriorates more quickly, even in dry conditions.

No - acid free paper last longer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid-free_paper

"Paper made from wood-based pulp that has not had its lignin removed turns yellow, becomes brittle, and deteriorates over time.[2] When exposed to light and/or heat, the molecules in the acidic paper will break down even faster.[3] It was only in the 1930s that the effects of wood-pulp paper became known, when William Barrow (a librarian) published a report about the deterioration of acidic paper in the libraries.[4] For fear of the gradual disintegration of written materials, measures have been taken to improve the quality of paper.
During production, acid-free paper may be treated with a mild base (usually calcium or magnesium bicarbonate) to neutralize the natural acids occurring in wood pulp, and it may also be buffered to prevent the formation of additional acids "

[mal4mac]

So, what happens if the paper isn't "Acid Free," or low quality like the Penguin and Oxford World Classics (both of which I own for several)? Does it just turn yellow? That fine for me, honestly . . . I kind of like yellowed paper in old books.. My copy of The Illustrated Man from the 50s is pretty much canary.

Also, are all paperbacks made with non-acid free paper?

University press paperbacks are often acid free, and American publishers are often acid-free. It's British who are the main culprits (shame on my country!):

"James Daunt, owner of Daunt's, on London's Marylebone High Street, has made a study of the problem over the years; he sells both American and British books, used and new. His explanation for the difference in quality? "It's because American publishers sew their bindings, and the cheapskate British publishers don't," he says. "They glue them. All glue dries, eventually. When it dries, the book falls apart. That's why you sew books." The tea-colored pages, meanwhile, are explained by British publishers' unwillingness to use slightly more expensive acid-free paper.

Daunt insists that many British books are well-made—the university presses generally use sewn bindings and acid-free paper, and their reference books remain things of beauty—and that a lot of American books are shoddy, even today. But there is an important difference: In America, bad books tend to be bad books... "In the States, you can more or less assume that if a book is a quality book, it will be built to last," Daunt says. "You cannot assume that if you're dealing with certain British publishers." Daunt names some particular offenders: the Penguin group, Random House U.K., Macmillan.

These publishers make books the way they do to save money. But they save a pretty paltry amount... For a very small print run, it cost an extra 30 pence per copy to produce the book with high-quality acid-free paper and carefully sewn bindings... British books are colossally marked up already: They tend to cost in pounds roughly what American books do in dollars—that is, just over 50 percent more. "So we have the worst of both worlds," says Daunt. "We have expensive books that fall apart.""

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2003/03/bargainbasement_literature.html

[kiki1982]

No - acid free paper last longer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid-free_paper

"Paper made from wood-based pulp that has not had its lignin removed turns yellow, becomes brittle, and deteriorates over time.[2] When exposed to light and/or heat, the molecules in the acidic paper will break down even faster.[3] It was only in the 1930s that the effects of wood-pulp paper became known, when William Barrow (a librarian) published a report about the deterioration of acidic paper in the libraries.[4] For fear of the gradual disintegration of written materials, measures have been taken to improve the quality of paper.
During production, acid-free paper may be treated with a mild base (usually calcium or magnesium bicarbonate) to neutralize the natural acids occurring in wood pulp, and it may also be buffered to prevent the formation of additional acids "

That's what I gathered from when I read up on it. Please see my former post.

It must have got muddled in my brain in the 90s.

[Kafka's Crow]

I have seen many a British books falling apart while sitting on the shelves. Those Penguins and Macmillans shed pages, specially in paperback form although when new, British books look more beautiful when compared with American books. Some American books are absolutely bullet-proof. Each volume in Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Views series should be classified as offensive weapon because they can break skulls if used skillfully for this purpose. At almost £40 per volume, this series should do more than simply educating undergrads.