On ebooks

[vivdunstan]

Just enjoyed another pair of SHARP book history conference panels. Including a very exciting for me keynote on ebooks versus print books, their readership and perceptions of them. This touched on so many issues important to me, as a reader - and book historian! - who now reads with huge difficulty, and relies on ebooks for gigantic fonts needed for disability reasons. There is so much snobbishness against ebooks, which is also an incredibly ableist perspective. Many of the survey responses discussed in this keynote echoed these exact views, powerfully and clearly. Anyway good stuff. And a fascinating Q&A after.

This is not to say that there aren't problems with ebooks. Academic ebooks for example are a nightmare area in terms of cost and books often suddenly vanishing from those available for students and lecturers to use. There are also big concerns re the dominance of Amazon and their tax dodging habits. But for many disabled readers ebooks are life changing. And it's not surprising many like me get angry when this is so readily overlooked.

Comments

[a_cubed]

Now, there's an overlap between your current research and mine. Could you point me to any details about the speaker?

[vivdunstan]

I've just emailed more details to your Meiji address.

[a_cubed]

Got it. THANK YOU!