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Author Topic: The Celator magazine  (Read 23652 times)

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Offline Ron C2

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #50 on: July 20, 2021, 07:32:24 pm »
I do not 100% agree. It's easier to correct mistakes online compare to written references.

For me it is obvious that all references, encyclopedias, dictionaries etc. should be digitalized and available online.

Except that they are not. Most of the RIC books are not online. See for the British museum reference books. Certainly not for the third century coins I collect.
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Offline Tracy Aiello

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #51 on: July 20, 2021, 08:02:27 pm »
The online resources that I’ve discovered via Forum/Numiswiki have been invaluable, especially when I was first starting out, and whenever I am able I add to them and correct broken links if I find them and can do so. One of the goals with my Numiswiki Sasanian References 2 page was to add a URL for each work cited that was accessible online. I periodically test those links and fix broken ones when I can. Online sources can be so convenient, easy to use, portable (have laptop/smart phone will travel) and searchability (if available) is a great tool. I agree 100% with Lech’s statement about the digitization of references, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. I am also a heavy user of JSTOR, and when I am on the UW Madison’s WiFi I have full, institutional access, which allows me to download PDFs. What do I do with them after downloading? I print them!!

I love the printed word, print/copy journal articles whenever I can, and also buy many books (more than I should), even books that I can easily access online (e.g. BDC Thessaly I and II, Traité, etc.). I guess that I prefer to use hard copies, but they do come with their “price” (as Lech stated: storage, dusting, shipping, boxes and boxes and boxes of them when moving).

Unfortunately online sources can sometimes be susceptible to disappearance. Just look at what happened to the Lorber/Shahar Silver Facing Head Coins of Larissa website: obsolete technology compounded by (understandably) the too daunting task of rebuilding the site from scratch. Of course, however, books can also be destroyed in many different ways.

Nothing wrong with the best of both worlds: digitization and the printed word. I love the convenience (and as Dominic T stated the ease of making corrections to online sources) of the former, but for the aesthetic and tactile experience nothing beats the latter. If I am sitting in my chair early in the morning or late at night, it is a book in my hand and not a device in my lap. But, that’s just my personal preference and nothing more.

Tracy

Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #52 on: July 20, 2021, 08:53:36 pm »
As an academic librarian I’ve been hearing the “print is dead” mantra for 15 years now.

And this mantra is true. But "print is dead" doesn't mean that there will be absolutely no print. Print is dead just like theater was already dead century ago. Theaters still exist, there are many new performances, new plays etc. But the theater audience is probably less than 1% of the total audience. The rest watch movies, TV, YouTube... I don't want to argue whether it's good or bad. These are just facts.

My private opinion: digital books are far better. They don't need shelves or dusting. They are easy to find and - what is more important - they are searchable. They also don't need transport (which is sometimes more expensive than book). They are available immediately. I just borrowed ebook from my local library although there is past midnight in Poland. The whole borrowing lasted two or three minutes (login, search in catalogue, few mouse clicks).

I have more than 5000 paper books (in communist Poland books were one of few things worth to buy) but if someone could magically turn them into ebooks (except few from my childhood), I would bless him.
Well the data of newly published works in print and corresponding sales tells a different story (maybe not for Joe’s sales but the general publishing industry, academic or otherwise).

Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #53 on: July 20, 2021, 09:08:01 pm »
What do I do with them after downloading? I print them!!

I am not a principled environmentalist but your habit is certainly not good for the planet.  :-[

Unfortunately online sources can sometimes be susceptible to disappearance.

Yes, I agree, especially sources made by hobbyists, private persons, and without institutional support. The solution is to make such sources copy-friendly: easy to download and to use offline.

For example, my "Not in RIC" is nearly 2GB big (~25,000 files) but it's structure is extremely simple. You just need to copy all the files, put them into one directory and click index.html. That's all. So I strongly suggest to make such personal copy and to update it monthly or quarterly. There are many free applications which can do it automatically. Pendrive 2-4GB (obsolete size) costs in Poland $2-3, in USA perhaps cheaper. I immodestly think that my page is worth two bucks.
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Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #54 on: July 20, 2021, 09:47:50 pm »
Well the data of newly published works in print and corresponding sales tells a different story (maybe not for Joe’s sales but the general publishing industry, academic or otherwise).

Do you really believe that amount of printed books grows faster than amount of ebooks?

And there is also a grey sphere of reading which grows rapidly. For example: academic library buys an academic book, student borrows it and makes scans, then sends scans to friends. If one of them will upload these scans/pdf to Internet there will be soon a thousands of new readers of such ebook. All from one printed book.

Probably in XV century, when Gutenberg started, some people also said that there are more manuscripts than ever. Which was also true at that time. But what counts is the dynamics of processes.
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Offline Virgil H

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #55 on: July 20, 2021, 11:01:02 pm »
Maybe cross border is a problem, but media mail in the US is a dream. It is literally the only postage that is affordable these days. As long as you are willing to wait (a few days) and don't expect two day delivery. I never got the instant gratification delivery thing. I can always wait. Of course I am old enough to remember when packages from overseas came via ship.
Virgil

Sadly shipping costs are a killer for the used book market.  Especially cross-border shipping.

SC

Offline SC

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #56 on: July 21, 2021, 07:43:39 am »
Yes, it is cross-border that is the problem.  A scam by USPS and others  with "products" like the "international book box".

Someone in upstate New York will pay four-five times as much to send a book to me - a three hour drive away - than they will pay to send the same book to California.

SC


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Offline Ron C2

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #57 on: July 21, 2021, 07:45:47 am »
Yes, it is cross-border that is the problem.  A scam by USPS and others  with "products" like the "international book box".

Someone in upstate New York will pay four-five times as much to send a book to me - a three hour drive away - than they will pay to send the same book to California.

SC

I can't wait for the border to reopen so I can start using my NY state Mail box again. Like Shawn, I live maybe 40 minutes from the border towns.
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Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #58 on: July 21, 2021, 08:17:12 am »
Well the data of newly published works in print and corresponding sales tells a different story (maybe not for Joe’s sales but the general publishing industry, academic or otherwise).

Do you really believe that amount of printed books grows faster than amount of ebooks?

And there is also a grey sphere of reading which grows rapidly. For example: academic library buys an academic book, student borrows it and makes scans, then sends scans to friends. If one of them will upload these scans/pdf to Internet there will be soon a thousands of new readers of such ebook. All from one printed book.

Probably in XV century, when Gutenberg started, some people also said that there are more manuscripts than ever. Which was also true at that time. But what counts is the dynamics of processes.
I wouldn’t say print is growing faster because eBooks are a newer technology, but it is still growing and customers seem to prefer it. When I first started out all the major book dealers were all pushing eBooks and it  was a bit of a flop. Your reasons for preferring digital are good—it is convenient and searchable, but what the market has seen is that customers want the  physical thing, not  a digital copy that, in many cases, is as expensive and occasionally more expensive.  Some dealers now just bundle them.  Others  are trying a lease program which is already failing miserably. The ultimate problem is that  publishers don’t want to lose money and customers expect a lower price.  When prices of eBooks drop  substantially we’ll perhaps see the  end, but I don’t expect it.

Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #59 on: July 21, 2021, 09:52:21 am »
The ultimate problem is that  publishers don’t want to lose money and customers expect a lower price.

Maybe I am completely wrong but I imagine that nowadays academic publishers think that way:

There are, let's say, four thousand academic and large public libraries in the world. If almost every library buys only one copy, we can sell about two or three thousand copies, which at a fairly high price (mostly paid by libraries with tax money) will be profitable. So it will be safer to print five not-so-good but still academic books in edition of 2000 copies each than one good book in edition of 10 000 copies with the hope that students and other private persons will also buy it.

And then academic librarian receives a new catalogue of books in print and says: Wow! There were 100 new books ten years ago and now there are 500. Who said that print is dead?!
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Offline Ron C2

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #60 on: July 21, 2021, 09:56:03 am »
My take: producing, warehousing, and distributing a paper book is expensive. The book is written in MS word, and making it a pdf is basically free.

Cost savings to not have to sell me something phisical should be passed to the consumer. But they are not. E-books generally cost about the same as print.

For the same price, or even for a premium, I would rather own something more durable than my hard drive's 1's and 0's.

The publishers are taking in unfair profit on e-books, in my opinion. I am unwilling to contribute to this system unless there is a massive cost savings to doing so.
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Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #61 on: July 21, 2021, 11:15:22 am »
E-books generally cost about the same as print.

The same was in Poland years ago but now situation changes. Probably mostly because of ebooks pirates. Now price of ebook is nearly always significantly lower than of printed book. Sometimes 50% lower, sometimes even more. There are also many promotional sales and invaluable webpage which informs where at the moment the price is lowest. At that page you can also establish your own limits. For example the regular price is 30 zlotys but you ask for notifying when the price drops under 20 zlotys. All of that is perfectly legal and I bought many ebooks that way. Of course, this only applies to Polish publishers.
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Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #62 on: July 21, 2021, 01:45:51 pm »
A quick search reveals that, at least in the US, print outsells eBooks by an enormous margin, so it is not just delusional academic librarians: 25 billion dollars versus 191 million dollars.

Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #63 on: July 21, 2021, 02:41:08 pm »
This is a big surprise for me because I knew slightly different data.

https://about.ebooks.com/ebook-industry-news-feed/

Could you share your source, please?
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Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #64 on: July 21, 2021, 03:29:32 pm »

Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #65 on: July 21, 2021, 03:30:42 pm »
That was from a quick search but it is consistent with other formal studies I’ve read and my knowledge of the industry.

Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #66 on: July 21, 2021, 03:33:41 pm »
It also is consistent with my brief read of your link—which says eBooks are only 21% of the market.  Print is hardly dead by those numbers.

Offline SC

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #67 on: July 21, 2021, 04:02:41 pm »
I like the dual-format products, which are popular in the role-playing game world.

A hard copy comes with a free key-code to download a PDF.  That way you get the proper physical book, but you also have a digital copy which means you can easily carry around a heap of books on your laptop and you can do things like key-word searches.

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Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #68 on: July 21, 2021, 04:11:37 pm »
eBooks are only 21% of the market. 

21% of sold books. But eBooks are easily copied and shared. We may safely assume that 1 sold ebook = 10 existing copies (probably rather 100 or 1000). We should also add PDF files made from scans of printed books. And this shapes the reading habits of the young generation.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/688411/book-piracy-sites/
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Offline Molinari

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #69 on: July 21, 2021, 05:53:04 pm »
It depends on the format of the eBook, really.  At libraries (and things like kindle) it is very closely controlled, so if you buy single access that is all you get, and must pay substantially more for universal access.  I have no doubt downloadable PDF books are pirated but how much is tough to determine.

Offline Lech Stępniewski

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #70 on: July 21, 2021, 06:08:44 pm »
At libraries (and things like kindle) it is very closely controlled

I think it is an illusion of control. I agree with opinion from statista.com I linked earlier: "Sadly though, e-book piracy is almost impossible to stop".

I just checked one of the well-known pirate sites with easy free access (no credit cards scams, no registration etc.). They have at the moment 8,052,673 books and 80,759,558 articles (mostly in English). Probably all students in USA are aware of this.
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Offline Virgil H

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #71 on: July 22, 2021, 02:13:46 am »
I have never shared an ebook or even software, although piracy is an issue, just not that big of one as publishers want us to believe. That is me and I did use Napster back in the day, so I am not pristine. The only ebooks I will read are mass market novels. I cannot imagine using a digital textbook. I would get nothing out of one and have actually given it a go. The idea they are searchable is ludicrous. Sure they are, then you never find that page again. Bookmarks, notes, and highlighting just are useless in ebooks. Any book that is important to me has to be print. That includes coin reference books. I cannot imagine trying to use a digital book to identify a coin unless I already know exactly what I am looking for. Ebooks are handy for travel, I will give them that. And I will read cheap novels on a reader, but that is it. Screens are also harder on the eyes. And the pricing is so ridiculous that in some cases a Kindle book is higher priced than the print version. And, either way, authors are getting screwed. Speaking of textbooks, that industry has been a scam for decades now, print or otherwise.
Virgil

Offline Severus_Alexander

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Re: The Celator magazine
« Reply #72 on: August 04, 2021, 08:40:32 pm »
Hello All,

For what's it worth, as a member of ANA I provided feedback to them on how Kerry Wetterstrom handled the closing of the Celator magazine and subscribers who were never notified or compensated.    ANA said they had no knowledge of any complaints about Mr. Wetterstrom.   At least they know now.

Thank you.

Kevin

 

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