The social contract

It's obvious that ebooks change the tactile experience of reading, but tying reading to a device does something even more insidious by reducing the way books can be a social unifier. Amen. (NYT/Orange Crate Art)

And finally, two related problems. I already have a personal library. But most of the books I’ve ever read have come from lending libraries. Barnes & Noble has released an e-reader that allows short-term borrowing of some books. The entire impulse behind Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks assumes that you cannot read a book unless you own it first — and only you can read it unless you want to pass on your device.

That goes against the social value of reading, the collective knowledge and collaborative discourse that comes from access to shared libraries. That is not a good thing for readers, authors, publishers or our culture.