The era of e-books and the loss of the love of reading .. Do libraries turn into decor?

Hala Al-Khatib - Beirut

Despite its ease of availability and cheap price, the e-book could not replace the paper book with its strong relationship with those who grew up on it and reading was part of their lives.

After the printed book remained the pillar of the culture and awareness industry since Gutenberg invented the printer in 1447, the e-book gradually begins to replace the paper book, using the technology boom and breaking into all areas of our lives, and presents itself as an alternative that reduces the reader to time, money and space, and makes reading combine interest, fun and interaction .

E-reading
E-reading reshape the reader’s relationship with the book, as he can choose the appropriate font for reading and its size, follow the percentage of what he read, and know how long it takes to read the chapter in his hands, and how much time remains for him to complete the whole book.

While turning pages, the reader can highlight the texts he wishes to refer to later, and he can publish them on social media or export them in one file in order to benefit from them.

E-reading also makes it possible to know the meaning of any word using the built-in dictionaries, or to know its translation, or even expand the reader’s information about the word by referring to the Wikipedia.

And with the development of the manufacture of these devices, which have become copies containing 32 GB memory, it has become possible for the small device to contain hundreds of books, which makes diverse reading easy anywhere, including mass transportation, where a person carries a large library in One-handed device.

The e-reader can be used in the shower as it is made with waterproof standards, which cannot be done with the paper book.

Some devices, such as Kindle devices, provide the service to link the device to the "Good Reads" website, which was purchased by Amazon maker Kindle, through which a list of books that the reader wants to read can be prepared, and read comments of other readers about them and evaluate them. He can also engage in a discussion about it with thousands of readers.

And electronic readers allow the transition between reading books and listening to their audio copies through services provided by companies such as Amazon and "Rakuten Kobo" and others.

Despite these temptations, there are still people who prefer the paper book because reading is not only a store of information, but knowledge, touch, tattoo, and the sound of flipping paper interfere, and reading becomes an emotional act, not just knowledge.

Better to focus
Joel Sfeir says that she still maintains her library which contains stories since childhood and does not like dispensing them at all, even though she donated some books to a public library one day because she loves to bring these books to a new generation.

Sfeir added that she still buys books, has no books on electronic devices, and takes the book with her to the sea or anywhere else.

And the use of e-books whistling in the case of research, and deliberately not to print the papers from an environmental standpoint and is satisfied with reading or printing the summary in case of necessity, although it is more comfortable to read the paper and put notes on it, so she requests her co-workers to be satisfied with reading e-mail without printing it as possible as possible "We no longer buy newspapers at home, and even my father used to read them online," she added.

Sfeir considers that the paper book only makes her focus on it without jumping to other sites and distracting her, as he urges with the e-book, and she loves to browse the papers and put a line under some phrases, folds the page sometimes, and guides books at other times.

Family Library
Salim Aladdin says that his relationship with books is old, as he was born in a house with a library full of important books that he was not aware of its importance when he was young, such as Dostovsky and Ghassan Kanafani, and intellectual and political books and some books of poetry and literature, and his father was keen to pull the family towards books .

Aladdin says that the first book he read was in the stage of spelling words without understanding them as his family tells him, and he began to write, to write, then to write poetry, and to publish books after that.

Aladdin reads the e-book only in the event of severe need, and says that he still loves the texture and smell of paper, and annoys him to write his notes on the phone, prefer paper and feel more safe. He says he has an emotional relationship with books and is very intimate, has a huge library and is still keen to buy books.

Reading for children
Fatima Karim says she loves to read the paper book and not on the phone, and prefers to turn the pages and feel the paper, which makes her feel more enjoyable.

Fatima buys a lot of books for her son, but she does not buy for herself, and says that her library is small because she relies primarily on her brother's library, which has a library that contains all specialties.

Fatima likes to read novels of world literature, religious and educational books, and articles on nutrition and skills development, while at work she relies primarily on e-mail and phone, but what she wants to do she writes on the paper.

Paper books
The Order of an agent does not consider himself a reader, yet when he reads he prefers real books as he calls them, not electronic ones, even he prefers to read newspapers, books and magazines "alive" in his hands.

Wissam has a small library with books in many disciplines, including stories, biographies, biographies, novels, politics, philosophy, psychology, and fiction.

During work he prints the papers he needs because he can focus and understand more by relying on paper, feels that he controls the material in front of him so that he puts his notes, colored the points that interest him, and feels more realistic. Finally, printing reduced a sense of responsibility to the environment.