#HTE

Tools & Craft #65: What’s Better for Assimilating Information, Print Books or E-Books?

As someone who collects books on woodworking I am routinely faced with the conflict of Cost vs. Space vs Ease of Use. While many people love their E-Books—and I have a bunch myself, the physicality of an actual printed book makes the world of difference for me. That being said I have run out of room for books in my apartment and any new volume really has to be worth the space. For me at least, I find that a well made and well printed book is a joy to read and that joy makes assimilating information all the easier.

The Dover reprint of Paul Hasluck’s 1908 Traditional Woodcarving has been a staple in our store for years. It’s an important book on woodcarving, not so much for the beginner, but for carvers trying to expand their options in architectural and furniture decoration. There is nothing really wrong with the reprint. It’s about the same size as the original, the photos are OK for a reprint, but I’ve never found it engaging. The writing is Victorian crotchety, and the reprint being a modern, even if well made, paperback just doesn’t make the connection for me. Before the Internet, and both the worldwide accessibility of the used book market, and Google’s insistence on scanning every book on the planet, the reprint was the only game in town.

The Google scan—which is freely available here—when viewed on my iPad is an immediately easier to read volume than the reprint. The scan is fine, but the text seems larger and reading it I don’t feel strained. Maybe because the medium is so removed from the original I don’t expect anything and it’s easier to concentrate on the book. However being able to view just one page at a time, and getting no sense of the volume, or not being able to easily flip through pages, for me is a vastly unsatisfying experience. It might really be just the glass screen that sits between me and the text that makes it appear distant. I am not sure if this is a generational thing and younger folks might not feel this way but I do.

Finally, just arrived, is a luscious original copy, bound in leather with gilt edges, from 1908. It’s basically the same size as the reprint, but for some reason it’s easy to assimilate. The book lies flat, the photos are clear, but it’s not immediately obvious why I find that it just begs my attention. Is it the off white of the paper? The feel of the leather cover? The immediate physiological connection with its history? I don’t exactly know but I find myself wanting to sit and read it more than my other copies.

Now I understand the with the availability of the scanned version my sales of the reprinted version will drop, and I know original copies like that I just bought are not readily available. But here’s what scares me: Ebooks, no matter how nice, are still read behind glass on a machine full of distractions. Unless you have multiple screens you can’t have more than one book open at a time. And for me at least, the assimilation of information is less. A cheap reprint may present the information but but the involvement isn’t there. Of course if publisher feels they can’t make a profit in print, there won’t be nice printed books. And if publishers feel they can’t earn enough money from a book, they won’t pay much to get it written and the working writer with something to say might need a day job. All that’s bad news. My original hardback Hasluck reminds me of what a craft book can be. It’s not the best book ever written, but the presentation makes it a lot easier to learn from. I don’t know what the future holds.

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This “Tools & Craft” section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.