{"id":4992,"date":"2009-11-15T09:15:51","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T14:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=2020"},"modified":"2025-07-31T12:55:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T17:55:53","slug":"an-ebook-is-not-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/an-ebook-is-not-a-book\/","title":{"rendered":"An ebook is not a book."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-16071\" src=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/20091115_meercats.jpg\" alt=\"Three meercats and one marmalade tabby cat standing on their back legs. The cat blends in well. Caption says \u201cOne of these things is not like the other \u2026 \u201d\" width=\"300\" height=\"252\">Can we find a word other than \u201cbook\u201d as a descriptive for the digital version of glue-and-paper? The word \u201cbook\u201d is way too loaded for those who profess a love of \u201cthat new book smell\u201d and their reactionary hatred of digital delivery.<\/p>\n<p>Print books and digital book are two completely different species. They don\u2019t have to compete. They <strong><em>shouldn\u2019t try<\/em><\/strong> to compete. Yes, the content is the same. Yes, the delivery system makes all the difference in the reading experience.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the reading evolution:<\/p>\n<p>Handhewn tablet \u2192 papyrus scroll \u2192 parchment leaves \u2192 illuminated manuscripts \u2192 Gutenberg Bible \u2192 mass market paperback \u2192 computer.<\/p>\n<p>None of those are the same epistemologically or anatomically, so why is the progression to reading digitized text on a handheld device difficult to accept?<\/p>\n<p>Just as a tablet is not a scroll, and a scroll is not an illuminated bundle of leaves, and an illuminated bundle of leaves is not a ream of paper saddlestitched and bound in leather. It is an electronic method of getting to text.<\/p>\n<p>An ebook is <strong><em>not supposed to be<\/em><\/strong> like a printed book. Expecting it to be invites frustration on everybody\u2019s part, and completely misses the point<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can we find a word other than \u201cbook\u201d as a descriptive for the digital version of glue-and-paper? The word \u201cbook\u201d is way too loaded for those who profess a love of \u201cthat new book smell\u201d and their reactionary hatred of digital delivery. Print books and digital book are two completely different species. They don\u2019t have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4992"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16898,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992\/revisions\/16898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}