For so many reasons, books should not be replaced. The most important is their permanence. So many copies, so widely dispersed makes it likely that our collective and individual literary history will survive in printed form, as it has done, in some cases for nearly 5000 years.

On the other hand, electronic communiction and files, while far more compact and useful in the sort term, have proved to be ephemeral. Change the hardware, change the software, the file is useless. Not to mention that storage media evidently degrades more rapidly than predicted.

On the other hand, The NYT article I read about the new reading machines suggests that travelers, business and otherwise, can pack a crate full of reading material on one slim reader, no net connection or special batteries required.

I should think that school text books could have a home on those machines - a way around 50# back-packs, obsolescence, and cost.

I doubt that I'll ever own one of those machines since I have Powell's books close by and hardly ever travel. But I suspect there is a legitmate use for this "tool" not to be considered a "book."

Googling "forensic bibliopegy" came up zero, but googling them separately did bring up various references to this news item:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/4891100.stm and the term 'anthropodermic bibliopegy', which may or may not be related.

according to Bingley's link, the book "may have been stolen", which would bring on the BCSI*, which would no doubt apply the latest forensic techniques...

QED
-joe friday (thanx to ron o.)

*Bibliopegic Crime Scene Investigation

Well, Bingley and Tsuwm, Etaoin's innocent and I guess correct answer takes a dramatic turn here and opens a perverse universum.
Books about crocodiles and elephants and cute little animals in Skin-
furry- and feathered covers and Oh no! The Biography on.......

Quite a link, that one.

Most of the arguments for brick and mortar books over ebooks are based on purely irrelevant factors which are in no way necessary to the transmission of information. We wax poetic over the feel of a book in the hands and the smell of the pages only because those are sensations we associate with the act of reading. Even the act of reading is irrelevant. It is not essential to the process of receiving a story or factual information. I have, in the past belittled the act of reading, claiming that the sounds of the fire crackling and the bard tuning his harp are superior to the sensations associated with those of looking at a bunch of squiggly lines on some ephemeral piece of papyrus. The argument for permanence is also ephemeral as it depends on the limitations of present day technology. To say that there are written records 5000 years old is no argument since not one person in a million could read them. Information from just a few hundred years ago is understandable only with some knowledge of the language changes that have occurred over those years. If we had a technology that could encode the information in a form that was directly transmittable to the human brain and could store it in a form that was immune from degradation it would be far superior to anything we have today. We could even add ancillary sensations so that people could feel what their ancestors had to put up with to get information.

If there is one storage device that is not immune to degradation it is the humain brain. I would it were different , but alas,real life experience. I have two large book collections to sort out that have survived their owner's brains and bodies in a perfect state.

Only from an ecological/environmental point of vieuw I see the positive side of this superior technology.(less objects)
But the environment- benefit maybe would be replaced by damage caused by these tecnical devices.
Books are never just information. This said I'm going to buy Robert Frost.

One reason I prefer newsprint when the same copy is available online is that I am very old with fixed habits. Aother is that it facilitates the acquisition of coupons

But the main reason is that I already spend too much time at my desk, I am becoming a screen sucker

Ebooks come in handy when you want to rest your eyes. I only read between 11 pm and 1 am. Trouble with ebooks at that hour is: it's like someone nice is telling you a bedtime story and sleep takes over too fast.
(I got Frost[selection]. Nice little pocket-size hardcover with a shiny grey ribbon for bookmark).I'm happy so I tell. My favorite English language poet is T.S Eliot, but Frost is new to me and at the same time New England revisited.

... as heard on NPR:

A much anticipated high-tech high school opened its doors last month in one of Philadelphia's poorer neighborhoods. Known as the School of the Future, the project was designed with help from technology giant Microsoft.

Microsoft Project Manager Mary Cullinane says the goal was to answer the question, "what if?"

"'What if a company like Microsoft and an organization like the School District of Philadelphia came together to build a school of the future? What would it look like?'" Cullinane says.

According to freshman Littleton Hurst, it looks "like Bill Gates' house," with a cafeteria like a restaurant and a gym "like an NBA-size basketball court."

The classrooms have the appearance of corporate meeting rooms -- complete with video projectors. Hurst laughs as he describes the coolest thing: "No pencils, no papers, no books. None."

Just laptops, which are standard issue at the school.

````
The whole story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6210622

I love pencils.

I read it. Help! A laptop. That's all? What about art A R T ?
No lumps of clay to throw at the ceiling. No wads of paper to throw at your favorite teacher. Those class rooms absolutely naked !
Just a different kind of poverty.

I hope you do not see this as interfering in other people's business,
but the fact that this try-out is done on below poverty level youngsters looks positive at first sight. But I suspect they are the easy volunteers, the guinea pigs. (OK guinea pigs don't volunteer.)
Would a well-to-do American , the heritage type send his child into this if- project?

Real life problems.
"What if ", the money had been used to build a few hundred elementary schools in Africa? With pencils, books, paper and blackboards + modest but regular wages for the teachers.

I think the point is that the kids below the poverty line are often already failing. In one class I tutor, the teacher allows me to take the students to the library at any time - to actually skip class. If there is a test, she sends them to the library with me (or one of the other tutors) and lets them test later.

Her opinion: they're already so far behind that they're not understanding what's happening in the class.

I don't know if I would approve of this for my kids, but I know this - that no matter what the school does, my kids will succeed. They take my money and give me whatever they give me. I don't have much say beyond stay with the system or leave. But they get the money to spend wisely or squander, either way. I'm pretty sure that the kids who are already failing are not going to be hurt much by this experiment. The AVERAGE black and hispanic graduates HS with the equivalent of an 8th grade education.

Bran: I address the sleep problem by reading only during the commercials...

...not too effective since the TV often puts me to sleep

Reading with a TV on? I can't even read with music on. One brain activity at a time.

Sorry, I missed your point at first . It is funny!

Bran: I turn down the volume to where I can't hear the words but can usu detect the return of the program

usu = usually

I see. The artificial sound of babbling brooks.

Most of the arguments for brick and mortar books over ebooks are based on purely irrelevant factors which are in no way necessary to the transmission of information.

Reading a book is to the transmission of information as making love is to the transmission of sperm.