...The Future of Printed Books in the Digital Age Students Name University Affiliation The Future of Printed Books in the Digital Age Books are cultural tools, which have undergone considerable changes since their inception. In the early times, books took the form of stones and clay tables, which, due to technology, evolved to the modernly printed book. Despite changes, the objective of books remained the same, which is, storing and preserving information. The storage and preservation of information have made it possible over the years to gain substantial knowledge. Therefore, the printed book will forever remain the most useful invention in learning (Bruccoli, 2007). On the other hand, professionals from libraries and publishing groups have commented that, the future usage of the printed books is on the decline taking into account the swiftly evolving technologies. The fear arises because digitalization has made it possible to provide printed books in electronic forms known as e-books, which has made it easier to access information. The threat is significant considering the wide usage e-books as the primary electronic contents in learning (Buzzeto-More, Nicole, & Elaboid, 2007). The question on the future of printed books in the digital age has induced mixed reactions. While some scholars feel that printed books will survive the digital age, others have commented that digitalization will cause the “death” of printed books. Scholars in opposition...
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...Future of Printed Books in the Digital Age Name Institution Date of submission Once upon a time printed books were the undisputed medium of expressing literary culture, as well as source of information and knowledge. Books were a central part of the society acting as a vehicle for carrying and disseminating histories, ideas, stories, and pictures. However, over the centuries, the literary culture of reading and relying on printed books as the primary source of information has gradually changed. The digital age is populated with technology, which has revolutionized all aspects of lifestyle. Thompson (2005) notes that one of these aspects is the culture of reading printed material from books and other sources. In this digital age, information is readily available on the internet merely by a click of a button. This is not only convenient, but also consume less time as opposed to the earlier eras where one would take time and go to the library, search for a book, and finally read to get the required information. As a result, books are becoming less and less desirable as their future is overtaken by the digital sources of information. Today, e-books have replaced the printed version of books particularly with the invention and popularity of tablets and iPads that are perfect carriers of e-books. E-books are on the rise as the sales of printed books decrease, and soon they will completely replace the printed versions. For instance, in 2003, the sales of printed books decreased...
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...Product Reassessment: The Traditional Printed Books Decline Wendy Anderson Strayer University Principles of Marketing August 7, 2013 The Traditional Printed books Decline The decline of the traditional printed book has become more noticeable since book stores have either closed some locations or closed their doors all together. There are still many people in the United States that know the value of owning and reading the traditional printed book. However, in current times convenience and laziness has become the standard. There are a lot of people that would prefer to carry around light weight technology such as an e-reader that can house a multitude and array of books than carry around a 500 page book or a multitude of said books. The use of e-readers to access e-books has become the wave of the future and the norm in today’s world. However, there are still many avid readers within the population that enjoy the feel and the read of the printed book. It is believed that everyone should have the opportunity to witness the advantages of reading the traditional book and be able to enjoy the experiences that a traditional book can bring to the table. As said before there a lot of people that still enjoy holding a printed book, turning the pages of said books and enjoy reading their genre of reading in the old fashioned way. The youth of America prefer to use electronics more now for educational and recreational purposes because it is easier...
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...Assignment 1 The book publishing industry is rapidly changing. Gone are the days of brick and mortar book stores. People desire the fast paced changing world that technology has created. Technology has led to a total and complete transformation of the way books are sold. This new phenomena is known as the electronic book. The electronic book or eBook allows users to download their favorite book right to there handheld reader. These readers take the form of dedicated eBook devices such as the Kindle or fully integrated digital media devices such as the IPad. These downloads are relatively inexpensive compared to buying the printed book version. Also, as technology progresses and the market becomes more saturated the price of the readers will fall even lower than their already relatively affordable prices. Does this new form of media have enough to overtake its predecessor of the printed book? The introduction of this near perfect sounding new media is facing some resistance. This resistance is coming for the publishers that produce the material in the first place. They are fighting to keep the old business model of printed books alive. This struggle is similar to that of the music industry. The once striving music industry is now crumbled due to the introduction of online music downloads. Most of this is due to illegal music sharing, but it is also attributable to the pricing of the songs. Publishers fear that this will have the same effect on the book industry. There are...
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...or grass. A thin sheet that helped me molds the person that I am now and a thin sheet that gave me the knowledge that I have now. Through the years, paper is used as a medium to convey printed or written information such as books, magazines, newspaper, and etc. Today, the digitalization in the print industry leads to an assumption that the Age of paperless paper is coming. Yes, paperless, based on the pessimistic people. No more printed outputs, no more newspapers and magazines or even books that are held and read by human. Of course, electronic books (ebooks) are available now. You can have a book on your gadget for free or pay just a little amount rather than buying a real book. Online newspaper and magazines too are converging to online world. They already have applications that let you read the same newspaper using just your gadget with the help of the internet. Cool right? Life becomes easier with the advent of technology. But it gives a hard time to the print industry. It is happening. Papers are turning paperless, but not all. Some documents are best kept in a written or printed output rather that to put it online such as confidential ones because hackers - or the so called thieves - are also available in the digital world. I cannot imagine having a life without paper. No paperback books that I can sniff while reading, no newspaper that I can...
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...w ww.pwc.com Turning the Page The Future of eBooks Technology, Media & Telecommunications Foreword Today, it seems eBooks and eReaders provide more questions than answers for the book industry: • Will the industry face the same issues that music publishers did during its digital transformation several years ago – primarily digital piracy and a loss of revenue as customers discovered new methods of acquiring content and adopted new listening habits? Publishers, Internet bookstores, and companies that manufacture eReaders have high expectations for the digital future of the book industry. A new generation of eReaders may, at last, achieve the long-awaited breakthrough that lures consumers away from paper and ink. In the United States, Amazon has revolutionized the market by producing an eReader that is easy to use and making it easy for customers to purchase a wide variety of books at competitive prices. While some people herald the advent of digital reader technology as an opportunity to open new target markets and create customers, others mourn the end of traditional books and doubt the industry will be able to retain control over pricing and content. • Who will purchase eReaders? Will they be designed to appeal to a broad group of customers or only to those who have a high degree of comfort with technology? Will people who read once in a while want to buy an eReader, or will they only be purchased by the small group of...
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...The implementation of books as digital downloads has given anyone the chance to read a book. Without having to leave the house, people can download a book in seconds. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Google have all jumped on the opportunity to sell e-books. E-book sales have jumped in recent years. With the invention and relatively low price of e-readers, Kindle and Nook being most prominent, Forbes estimates nearly 30 million Kindle e-readers have been sold. They also estimate that Amazon makes nearly $500 million in e-book sales annually. (Brown, A. 2014). With annual sales growing and 1000’s of book downloads daily, e-readers have had a profound influence on adult reading habits. Research shows that adults read more books per year on e-readers than in print. In some cases doubling the amount of books read than the average printed book reader. In 2013, USA Today and Bookish conducted a poll to see how many people owned an e-reader or tablet. Based on their results, they found that 40 percent of adults own an e-reader or tablet. Of those, 46 percent of them were in the ages of 18 to 39. That same poll found that 60 percent of college graduates also have an e-reader. At most, 35 percent of that number say they read more often now that they have reading devices than they did before (Minzesheimer, B. 2013). The particular person this article focuses on is a man named, David Delk. Delk says he reads 40 books a year compared to just 20-25 before his e-reading days. He explains his...
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...E-Books vs. Printed Books: The 21st Century Debate By Elana Goodwin on September 12, 2014 Tweet Pin It E-book sales have skyrocketed in recent years as personal digital reading devices have steadily risen in popularity since the Amazon Kindle was released in 2007. This trend has sparked a worldwide debate of the pros and cons of e-books vs. printed books and what technological advances in reading means for the publishing industry as a whole. Back in 2010, when Apple came out with the first generation of its tablet, the iPad, the Pew Research Center found that only 5 percent of Americans owned an e-reader and 4 percent owned a tablet. But as e-readers improved their design and debuted increasingly sleeker, more intuitive, larger memory models, e-reader ownership grew. Photo Credit: u-publish.com Today, those numbers have severely multiplied, with 32 percent of Americans owning an e-reader and 42 percent owning a tablet, those devices being two of the biggest ways e-books are consumed by readers. http://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/134689/E-Books-vs-Printed-Books-The-21st-Cent However, though e-reader and e-book sales numbers seem to be constantly growing, a report by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) showed that in 2013, hardcover book sales in the U.S. were actually up while overall U.S. e-book sales were actually down about 5 percent. The AAP found that hardcover book sales rose 11.5 percent to $778.6 million through August of 2013 while e-book sales were...
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...Many define reading as the mere examination of text. If I were to define “reading” as the sustained perusing of text that is usually, but not always, associated with the printed word, “the hours spent prowling the Internet are [indeed] the enemy of reading”. (RICH 2008) Opponents contend that spending time on the Internet improves literacy in terms of the ability to read and write. The material available online is diverse, presenting different points of views on a topic quite unlike most books. The Internet also encourages writing with websites urging users to share their opinions and comments. Thus, opponents assert that the time devoted to Internet surfing enhances literacy for we are able gather considerably more information and practice our skill of reading and writing. However, opponents seem to neglect the fact that “many youths spend most of their time on … activities that involve minimal reading at best.”(RICH 2008) Furthermore, they do not take into account the final and perhaps most important facet of “literacy”: the ability to think critically about the text. Most adopt “skim-reading”, a rapid scanning of text to pick out the main ideas, which weakens our capacity for the kind of deep reading required for critical thinking. The Internet may serve up more knowledge than a book can but as Sven Birkerts contends, “we know countless more “bits” of information… [but] we know them without a stable sense of context” (Birkerts 1994). With little time taken to chew on and...
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...The Future of Books Nearly 2,405,518,376 people in our world have access to the Internet; needless to say we live in a very technically inclined society. Almost every task that is preformed is done by using some sort of technological medium, whether that be a computer, smartphone, tablet, etc. We have the ability to access multitudes of information by the push of a button in something so small that it fits into the palm of our hands. I personally believe that technology is a great way to expand our knowledge, especially since we live in a climate that is centralized around such things. Like much of everything else in our world, the way we read has been technologically transformed. It used to be that if you wanted to read a novel you would have to go to a library or a book store and buy the ones that you were interest in reading. If you wanted more than one you had your satchel that you could put three of your 500 page novels into, which was kind of a hassle. Today there is a way to store millions of books on something no bigger than a sheet of printer paper. The integration of eBooks into our libraries, schools, and personal libraries is crucial to keep future generations reading. Technology is and will continue to be a very large part of our lives and if we are going to keep people interested in written words we must allow innovation to take place. Society and the way we do things drastically change from each passing decade. The very first computer took up a whole entire...
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...Project Log-book This document briefly outlines the operating instructions related to project planning, execution, and review. UG students may work as a team on a project with not more than 3 students per team. Every project will have a guide. In addition to the guide, a few projects may have a co-guide as per the need of those projects. The project student(s) will, in discussion with the respective guide(s), submit a project proposal to the project work co-ordinator. The students continue their work on the chosen project with periodical discussions with and review by the respective guide(s). The continuous work of the students will be reviewed by a team of faculty members who are assigned by the department to conduct reviews. Details related to the review (number of reviews, schedule, scope etc) will be separately communicated by the project work co-ordinator. From the point of capturing the way a project has been executed, the department requires that two log-books be maintained during the course of the project work. One log-book, to be maintained by each student (even in the case of a team project), shall contain the log of work done by the concerned student. The other log-book, to be maintained by the project guide, shall contain the record of discussion between the guide and the team (hereafter the words team and student(s) should be understood as per the context of a project). Guidelines Related to the Log-book to be maintained by each Student 1. Un-ruled...
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..._______________________________ (Leave blank) ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY GMGT 4010 7750253 WORD COUNT__2653__ Instructor: Jijun Gao A04 Wednesday 2:30-3:45 MIDTERM TAKE-HOME EXAM. FALL 2014 Dear CEO, Since Random House is continuing its expansion in the global region, I have some recommendations about the future business. Consider about the issues that customers’ behaviors change, the usage of large warehouses and the merge with other publishers, I have some analysis and alternatives to provide. Because your company is going to merge Penguin, the Chinese market it your next main market I have three business plans to help penetrate the new market. All three strategies suggest enter Chinese market. First is to use broad cost leadership in the printed book market and use focus differentiation in the e-book market. The second strategy is to work with government to produce “political” books, which build an authoritative image. In addition, developing online distribution channel is another mission. The third strategy is to work with universities to provide books in different languages as well as develop an online-learning system. All these three business plans are evaluated by three criteria: Net Present Value, the degree of easiness to enter the market and easiness to manage. When all assessed by these three standards, I recommend the third strategy. Although it dose not generate the highest NVP, it is relatively easy to...
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...Yelyzaveta Tymchenko Dale Williams English 1020-101 July 4, 2013 Should e-books Take Over? In the current world, it is hard to see people with paper books in their hands. But people with smart phones, PC’s and other technological innovations can be seen in every place. Is it true that nobody is reading paper books in the world anymore? Some people say that e-books are more ecological and useful because there is no need to waste paper. However, others have a different opinion, and think that nothing can replace traditional books. Some people argue that there is no need in paper books anymore, while others people argue that there is need in paper books, and that it is more beneficial than e-books. There are two main words that need to be defined: traditional books and e-books. Today, most of the people are familiar with the term book. On a daily basis humans are using books for information, studying, researching or just for reading during their leisure time. A book is defined by Oxford dictionary as “a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together on one edge and bound in covers”. It is a literary composition that is published or intended for publication as such a work (Oxford dictionary). Also, the term book can be referred to some literature works. In science a book can be called a magazine, journal or newspaper. However, as society grows everything is starting to improve, for example different technologies and even knowledge about certain things. ...
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...classroom rather than traditional printed textbooks? Studies have shown technology such as tablets are more helpful than textbooks schools get each year. Harcourt (n.d.) used a "digital version of the Algebra 1 textbook for Apple's iPad in California's Riverside Unified School District." (para. 10) Students had a 20% higher test score using the digital version than the printed textbooks. Each year school's spend about $7 billion on out of date printed textbooks. By them switching to tablets, schools could save about $3 billion. So why do schools not want to make the change? Textbooks are usually seven to ten years out of date when schools buy them. Therefore, the students are not getting the most current information they need to learn. With tablets, students and teachers would be able to stay up to date with all and any information they need. Tablets are much lighter than print textbooks. They can hold hundreds of textbooks, save the environment by lowering the amount of printing, increase student interactivity, and creativity, and that digital textbooks are cheaper than print textbook. “…in 2006, the U.S. book industry consumed approximately 30 million trees and had a carbon footprint equivalent to 12.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 8.85 pounds per book sold.” (Green Press Initiative and the Book Industry Study Group. 2008) Paper books can be recycled, though at this point not much data is available regarding the percentage of books that are recycled at the end of...
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...The Threat of Online Publications to the Traditional Publishing Industry The aggregate demand of published material, both online and offline, is a fixed number. Publishers in today's mass media market face fierce competition; each customer that an online publisher wins comes at the expense of its offline counterpart. To illustrate, imagine the unequal slicing of a pumpkin pie representing market shares that vary in size. The sum of all shares, or 'slices,' adds up to the total client base. Although each publisher already owns a portion of the pie, it still covets those who have a bigger slice. In this zero-sum game, with each new slice that a publisher gains, its pie becomes incrementally larger, while the competition's becomes incrementally smaller. Statistics have shown an upward trend in e-journal subscriptions in recent years, mainly because online periodicals are more frequently updated, cheaper to produce, and accessible everywhere (Greco 2). To that end, the internet has helped many web-based media business increase their market share while simultaneously decrementing those owned by their offline competition. Given their inferiority in cost, channeling, and time-to-market, how do traditional publishers stay in business? In the same way opposing forces in nature result in a state of equilibrium, there is a single overarching mechanism in the publishing industry that is designed to buffer short-term market gains and resist long-term change. This built-in mechanism...
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