A paper book can sit on the shelf for decades and anyone can pull it out and start reading. Digital books are much, much harder to maintain.
E-book vs. physical book (which do you prefer?)
According to Brewster Kahle of The Internet Archive, keeping eBooks readable takes a lot more work than you might expect. Changing file formats, preventing copying, and the fragile nature of digital storage make managing digital books an endless task. And that’s true for a professional library. For individuals, it’s even worse.
"With the constant change, not only in file formats but also in digital devices, it's difficult to maintain a digital library. I started my digital library on a Nook device, before switching to a Kindle and eventually Apple, and many purchases have been lost," e-book reader Caroline Duggan told Lifewire via email.
“For those of us who manage libraries of digitized and born-digital books, we know that they require constant maintenance: reprocessing, reformatting, re-sprucing, or they are not readable or readable,” Kahle says on his company blog. “Our paper books have sat on our shelves for hundreds of years and are still readable. Without active maintenance, we’d be lucky if our digital books lasted a decade.”
