"Owning" eBooks

Reading "Convergence and its discontents: From a book culture to a reading culture" by Prof. A. van der Weel (incidentally also my thesis advisor), I let my mind wander and I came up with this particular thought:

If the digital book removes the status-symbol factor of books (something the book as an object definitely has), does that mean that the only eBooks that'll be bought will be the ones that really are going to be read (therefore, less eBooks will be bought, since less and less is being read)?
On the other hand, isn’t it true that a lot of books are bought because they will, at some point, probably (or not, in some cases) will be read (this is, I suppose, the psychology of the reader)? If this is the case, the digital form of an eBook should be of no consequence (especially since the hard drive on which you store eBooks is, probably, infinitely larger than any physical shelf space (more room for books to read at some point in life, so to speak).

Keep in mind I haven't actually finished the article. The PDF file is open on my laptop as we speak and it's glaring at me to read it (I will, I just figured I'd do this first). The thought also really hasn't much to do with my thesis subject (as far as I have one, we're talking embryo phase, here.....actually, the healthy, little swimming soldiers of my mind have yet to reach the metaphorical ovum of original thought, :-)

The point I'm, hopefully successfully, trying to make is perhaps too personal. I don't know if every buyer of books works in the same way as I do. However, I would not be surprised if they do. I can't really call myself a mass reader of books (recently started to remedy that), but I do think I own quite a nice collection of different genres of books. Since I don't think this is solely for status reasons (I don't display them nearly as nice as I could) the other reason, which I frequently comment upon is this: When I buy books I might be aware of the fact I will not read them any time soon, but I'm convinced I will read them at one time in my life. Or; "I'm just building a collection for later, otherwise I'll have nothing to do when I'm old and retired".

Regardless of whether this is bullshit or not (hint; it is), it serves as a perfectly good excuse to keep buying books I won't necessarily have the time to read. And I wonder if this is true for eBooks as well. My complete thoughts on digital distribution (on anything, really) deserves more time, so I won't go into it here. But I can definitely see myself stuffing my hard drive with books to read in the future (hopefully on my then owned iPad....seriously, I want that thing so badly, :-)

Anyway, something to think about. I'll probably come back to it. This is turning out to be a longer post than originally intended anyway. You know how it works; one sentence becomes a paragraph, a paragraph becomes an entire essay, and all of a sudden you find yourself checking the spelling and argumentation and rearranging words to better suit your point, as if this is something that matters. Maybe that's the reason I don't write as much as I could/want on this blog; it just becomes too much of a hassle. Oh well, here's to....more, I guess.

I'll finish that article now, before it gets mad at me.
SW