Books and E-Books

This is a little off the subject of safety, but there is a tie-in. I love books (the printed variety) and always have. I like the look of them, the feel of them, and the smell of them (especially the old and slightly musty-smelling variety). I was that kid in college who refused to sell his text books because I wanted to keep them on my bookshelf for future use and because I just like books! Every place that I lived, I built bookshelves to display my "fortune." Books were like money to me.
There was a place in my hometown where they purveyed used books. It was a virtual warehouse of books and magazines. Some were very old. The entire place smelled musty and dusty and it was akin to paradise for me. I visited that store often - the contents changed every week as book lovers emptied shelves and new shipments of used books arrived in crates. I found many a rare volume there that I added to my growing collection of treasured books.

Everything was fine until I reached the age of 46 and found that I had to move 1200 miles in pursuit of a new job. I didn't mind the move so much, but I found that moving my treasures (books weigh a great deal) was expensive and new residences don't often provide the required areas for storage of many hundreds of books. So, I purged my collection. Even though I carefully chose which books to leave behind, it was very difficult.

About 8 years later, I moved again and had to leave even more books behind. I still built bookshelves, but they seemed to get smaller each time as my collection diminished. Then I discovered e-books! Not that I didn't use books on the internet for reference work, but the e-readers that are just becoming popular just weren't around. Sure, I downloaded a few onto my palm pilot, but it just wasn't very satisfying. Then I heard of the Kindle and the Sony e-reader - each with a price tag of $300. Both were available on-line and touted "no back-lit screens" and "paper like pages." Could I justify the expenditure of $300? Were the claims of being able to read in bright light true?

I researched both Kindle and Sony, but still couldn't decide. But, Sony sells their version at Target so I could touch it, feel it, and try it out to see if the claims are true. Sony's version also lets me load .pdf files and I could justify the purchase because I could load my safety manuals, etc. onto the e-reader and carry an entire safety library with me wherever I went. And, my desire for instant gratification took over. I made my decision. I liked the e-reader and could walk away from the store and begin reading immediately. Wow!

In this morning's newspaper, I read an article about e-readers. The author indicated surprise that they are most popular with the 60+ set. Why should that be a surprise? Although I'm still months away from 60, weren't we baby boomers the ones who embraced Star Trek?

Did you ever try reading a new hard-cover Michener novel in bed? It's huge and weighs a great deal. With e-readers, every book is the same physical size. If reading outdoors, the pages don't blow over. I can store hundreds of books in less space than one paperback book. You get the idea. What about the cost? Well, if you read a great deal, say only one new hardcover book per month, the 1/3 cost of an e-book will justify the initial expenditure in about a year. If you read more than 1 book each month, the savings mount quickly. And if that doesn't convince you, think about how many trees you save with an e-book as compared to the printed version.

So, what has all of this to do with Occupational Safety? Well, think about my earlier thought about carrying around safety reference materials. My e-reader has a scandisk slot into which I can load a huge number of safety reference works. They are always with me and accessible from my e-reader - and at lunch time, I can visit my latest novel without carrying anything additional.

I still like printed books. I still like their look, feel and smell. But, they will soon be going the way of horse and buggy, slide rules, and the cathode ray tube.