By Eamonn Carey
I love books. I buy a lot of them. There’s something irresistable about spending time in a proper bookshop. In recent weeks, I have been in massive shops on three continents, and each time I have walked out with a slightly heavier bag than I’d intended.
You might not think this has much to do with technology, but it does. Dozens of Irish techies have travelled North and East today to buy an iPad, which has been released in Nothern Ireland and the Britain. Plenty of people have already tried one out or gotten one shipped back from the US, and there’s no denying that it’s a great device.
Harbingers of doom would have us believe that the days of the printed page are limited. Good news for trees, but bad news for those of us who spend hours browsing in slightly musty-smelling second-hand bookshops around the world.
With all that said, I am no luddite. Part of my job is to embrace new technology, and I do so readily. I see the potential inherent in delivering content to portable devices. I read a range of newspapers, blogs and other text-based sites on my iPhone every morning. I do this before I read a paper, or before I sit at a computer. I am fully aware that this is the way things are going. My only problem is that it still doesn’t feel right.
Have you ever thought to yourself that you’d love to spend an hour sipping a coffee and meandering through titles on Amazon.com? If you have, then I applaud your patience.
I like having a bookshelf in my living room. I like having books on the shelf above my bed. I like being able to look at my collection of books and remember snippets from each one. I like randomly selecting books with silly names in bookstores and reading the blurb. I like the experience of books.
That is what Amazon, Borders, and iBooks cannot replace. Have you ever tried browsing in iTunes? Have you ever thought to yourself that you’d love to spend an hour sipping a coffee and meandering through titles on Amazon.com? If you have, then I applaud your patience.
Poor substitutes
While Amazon, iBooks and the other online markets have become a hugely important marketplace, they are still a poor substitute for visiting a store and holding a product in your hands. Add the fact that most e-readers cost a few hundred euro and e-books are frequently and inexplicably more expensive than their paper counterparts, and you’ve got something that’s a serious barrier to mass adoption.
Here is my solution. It’s a little ahead of the game, but I suspect it’s how may be bookshops will function in the future. Someone should set up a physical bookstore — complete with one or two paper copies of all their titles. It should have all of the trappings associated with a good bookstore — comfy chairs, nice coffee and an all round bookish atmosphere.
Users can pick up books and read the sleeve notes. They can wander around specific sections as much as they want, and when they find something they like, they can just click on a barcode associated with that title and that specific shop. They can then confirm the purchase, have it downloaded to their e-reader or iPad, and the retailer will get a standard commission on the transaction.
Would I use this service? Absolutely. As long as someone else sets up another business using holographic imagery to generate a virtual bookshelf in my livingroom and a virtual pile in my bedroom from the list of titles on my e-reader. That way I can remember what books I’ve read, what ones I have yet to read, and what ones will continue to gather virtual 3-D dust.
Eamonn Carey is a digital media consultant and co-founder of URBN, a digital publishing and smartphone company. You can follow Eamonn on twitter.com/eamonncarey. His Tech View column appears every week on JOE.ie.
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