ripping

My work has me move every year or so, often across the EU. I have a couple of walls of books (actually, a lot of boxes of books). Moving them is a bloody nuisance, but I want the books’ content to hand.

The same was true of my records and CDs. Now I have an iPod, and no hassle moving with my music collection.

I’d love to be able to keep my books electronically and read them with an ebook. But it won’t work. Why? Well, forget the lazy journalist scared–of–change rote of isn’t paper wonderful, the real problem is there’s no easy way of digitising a dead–tree collection.

So what will happen? Well, I, for one, would be willing to go to ebook, so long as I could repurchase my favourite books in (non–DRM) electronic form. Some publishers, like TOR and O’Reilly, are moving there. Once a few more have joined in, I’ll switch.